Transparency and Environmental Sustainability Guidelines in Land Administration in Nigeria

The Land Use Act of Nigeria, first enacted in 1978 was intended to simplify and standardise land administration systems across the country. It vested the authority to plan, assign and approve certificates of land ownership in the state governors, and all non-urban land in the local governments. However, the Act failed to establish the standards of designating a location as ‘urban’ or ‘rural’ and it also failed to incorporate biodiversity conservation and environmental standards.Undertaking desk reviews of previous studies, this research aimed to analyse the causes of corruption and the ineffective strategies in land-resource management and indicated the benefits of instituting modern reforms across that would mitigate corrupt practices and ensure efficiency in land administration and tenure governance using frameworks such as the World Bank’s Land Governance Assessment Framework and the Food and Agricultural Organisation’s Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests