Adefi Olong

Appraising the Alienation of Land Under Ufia Customary Law: the Case of Benue State, Nigeria Adefi Olong

This project examined the impact of the Nigeria Land use Act on the lives and people of Ufia (Utonkon) in Benue State, Nigeria. It essentially evaluated the seemingly factors responsible of the utter disregard of the Land Use Act as regards the disposition of Land, getting into cognizance the allodia nature of land in the annals of the Ufia people. As lofty as the proponents of the tenants of the Act may be, the Ufia custom and tradition unearthed the fact though sordid in the estimate of the Land Use Act that Land cannot be vested in an individual called the Governor or the Local Government Council as the case may be. In arriving at such conclusions, books, learned journals, conferences materials, unpublished legal materials and interviews were conducted and heavily relied upon. The project found out that there were some pertinent sections of the Land Use Act that needed reforms to attune with the reality of the Nigerian indigenous terrain. The project proffered suggestions in the form of the abolition of section 36(5) of the Land Use Act and section 21 to ease alienation of Land in rural Ufia.