By Muiz Banire, SAN
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I was recently stunned by a case in which a litigant obtained judgment, through his lawyer, over land that was not only fully developed but held under a registered title deed for over five decades, by suing an “unknown person” and securing an order for substituted service on a property with no fixed address. How does one rationalise that? Where a party claims that another court has already ruled on a property, verifying that judgment should not be difficult, yet, as noted, forged judgments now abound. The judiciary must never become an unwitting collaborator in illegality. Which role do the professionals and the communities play in this regard? The conduct of lawyers deserves scrutiny too. A lawyer who knowingly prepares false documents, presents forged instruments, or helps a client abuse judicial process is not merely representing a client, he is participating in an assault on the administration of justice.
Professional ethics must mean something. Disciplinary bodies must act decisively on credible evidence against lawyers, surveyors and other professionals who lend their expertise to land fraud. The menace cannot be defeated while professionals continue to lend it legitimacy. Traditional and community institutions also play a role. In many parts of the country, land disputes arise when one branch of a family sells land today and another branch resells it tomorrow, trapping innocent purchasers in disputes they never created. Family heads and community representatives must recognise the consequences of indiscriminate land sales, and government should strengthen mechanisms for documenting family and community land transactions, registering every land interest is the surest way to make this asset truly mobile and genuinely capital in nature. Land grabbing is not merely a private dispute between individuals; it carries serious economic consequences. No investor will confidently commit resources to property development where title can be violently challenged at any moment. Banks need reliable collateral.
Developers need predictable rights. Homeowners need security of tenure. If citizens cannot trust land documentation, the entire property market suffers,and both foreign and domestic investors take note of what a compromised property regime says about a country’s institutions. The multiplier effect of this is that investments dwindle and urge for industrialization declines. The consequence of this is mounting unemployment and by extension, insecurity. The human cost is equally severe. Behind every disputed property is often a family. I have heard of elderly citizens spending their retirement years moving between police stations and courtrooms over land they legitimately acquired decades earlier, developing hypertension and other health problems, exhausting their life savings on litigation, watching their families fracture, and passing unresolved cases down to their children. In extreme cases, the violence results in injury or death.
How does society compensate a person who loses his health defending his own property? How do we compensate families who lose loved ones to thugs who invaded their land? How do we restore years wasted fighting forged documents and fraudulent claims? These are not abstract questions. Government owes its citizens a duty of protection.
It is therefore imperative that we consider the antidotes the government can float towards curbing the menace. Leadership is not measured only by roads, bridges and airports. It is measured by government’s ability to protect the weak against the powerful, the lawful against the lawless, and the innocent against organised oppression. A society where only the well-connected can protect their property is already on a dangerous path. A citizen should not need access to a governor, minister or police commissioner before his lawful ownership is respected. Justice must not depend on connections, the poor man with one legitimately acquired plot deserves exactly the same protection as the billionaire with an estate. Government must send an unmistakable message: land grabbing carries serious consequences. States with existing laws against forcible takeover must enforce them vigorously; where legislation is weak or absent, it must be strengthened. Because many of these operations involve networks rather than lone individuals, special investigative and prosecutorial mechanisms may be necessary, and prosecution must be swift.
Perpetrators understand that cases can drag on for years; that delay becomes another weapon of impunity. Justice delayed here is not merely justice denied, it is an incentive for further lawlessness. Law enforcement must establish clear protocols for handling land disputes, first ascertaining whether a matter is fundamentally civil before acting on any complaint. Where competing title documents exist, parties should be directed to the courts rather than allowed to use arrest as leverage. Senior officers must take responsibility for preventing their commands from becoming instruments in private property battles, and any officer found colluding with land grabbers should face severe disciplinary, and where appropriate, criminal, consequences. The uniform of the state must never be rented out to private oppression. Citizens, too, have responsibilities.
Purchasers must conduct proper due diligence before parting with money, avoiding haste, engaging lawyers and qualified surveyors, conducting registry searches, and verifying the identity and authority of vendors, particularly where family or corporate land is involved. Cheap land can become the most expensive property a person ever buys. Still, even the most careful purchaser cannot fully protect himself where institutions are weak, which is exactly why government intervention remains indispensable.
Public enlightenment is also needed: many citizens simply do not know what to do when land grabbers invade their property, and often respond either by mobilising rival thugs and escalating the violence, or by surrendering out of fear. Government agencies should educate citizens on lawful responses and provide accessible channels for reporting forcible possession and fraud.What all the above translates to is that the rule of law must be allowed to thrive at all times. The rule of law is basically the core issue. This ultimately revolvesround the rule of law. A country either protects lawful property rights or gradually surrenders ground to anarchy. There cannot be two systems of property acquisition, one built on lawful title, the other on the number of thugs a person can mobilise. There cannot be one system of justice for ordinary citizens and another for those able to manipulate security agencies.
There cannot be authentic court judgments competing indefinitely with manufactured ones, or genuine survey plans competing with fabricated documents. That is not a society governed by law. As the Yoruba say: “Ti a ko ba tete di iho, iho yoo di akitan” , if a small opening is not closed early, it may eventually become a refuse dump. Land grabbing has been tolerated for too long.
What began in some communities as the work of local miscreants has, in places, evolved into sophisticated networks exploiting weaknesses in security agencies, land registries, survey institutions and even the judiciary. If we continue to look away, the consequences will only grow more dangerous.Government must act now. Land records must be modernised. Survey documents must become easily verifiable. Court judgments and orders must be capable of electronic authentication. Security personnel must be restrained from interfering in purely civil property disputes.
Lawyers and other professionals who knowingly aid fraudulent transactions must face disciplinary consequences. Prosecutors must pursue land grabbers vigorously. Courts must treat forcible possession and forged documentation with the seriousness they deserve. Above all, political leadership must demonstrate that no one is above the law. Nigeria is not a banana republic.
We cannot continue to allow people to operate like gangsters,invading properties with armed thugs, manufacturing documents, intimidating legitimate owners, and then walk free while their victims move endlessly between police stations and courtrooms. The legitimacy of government is ultimately tested by whether citizens feel protected.
When an innocent person discovers that strangers have seized land bought with his life savings, and every institution he turns to seems powerless to help, he begins to lose faith not only in the property system, but in the state itself. That is dangerous. The message from government must be unequivocal: lawful title will be protected, violence will not confer ownership, forged documents will not create rights, and no security officer or public official will be permitted to lend the authority of the state to private illegality.
Land grabbing is no longer an irritation to be ignored. It is a serious threat to property rights, security, industrialization, justice, investment and social stability. Now is the time to tame land grabbers. And if there truly is government in the land, this crude, barbaric and gangster-like seizure of other people’s property must stop.
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