By Yomi Fawehinmi | Land is a crucial resource that requires effective management by governments and various institutions to ensure equitable access and utilisation. This responsibility stems from the fundamental obligation of governments to protect the right to life, libertyand property, as espoused by the 17th-century philosopher John Locke. To achieve this objective, the government is expected to facilitate the development of an effective land administration and management system.

Such a system should enableland access, ownership, and efficient land markets, reduce tensions and conflicts about land, create clear tenure, foster economic growth, enhance local and domestic productivity and investment, improve community well-being, and enable sustainable land management and land use. Proper land administration can play a significant role in enhancing citizens' access to various opportunities and overall national growth and development.

Section 43 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria guarantees the right to property by stating that "subject to the provisions of this Constitution, every citizen of Nigeria shall have the right to acquire and own immovable property anywhere in Nigeria."

The Land Use Act of 1978 (LUA) is the principal legislation that governs land tenure in Nigeria. It regulates how land is bought, sold, managed, and used.Section 1 of the Act states that "subject to the provisions of this Act, all lands comprised in the territory of each state in the Federation are hereby vested in the governor of that state, and such land shall be held in trust and administered for the use and common benefit of all Nigerians in accordance with the provisions of this Act."

However, the Act's provisions, including the requirement for governors’ consent to land dealings, have had mixed outcomes. After 45 years of the Land Use Act, there is need for urgent reform of the law to ensure that Nigeria has a land policy that aligns with the country’s developmental goals and caters to the diverse needs of its citizens.

Prior to LUA: One Country, Two Land Tenure Systems

Before the promulgation of the Land Use Act, land tenure in northern Nigeria was influenced by two major factors: Islamic law and British rule. The Islamic influence was tied to the powers of the Emirs as communal leaders and managers of communal assets. Under British colonial rule, statutory regulation of land rights was introduced through the Lands and Native Rights Ordinance of 1910, which was later amended in 1916. The Land Tenure Law of 1962 further amended and re-enacted the 1916 Ordinance. This law declared certain lands in northern Nigeria as "native lands," and vested their management and control in the Minister (later Commissioner) for Lands and Survey, who administered such lands for the use and common benefit of the natives. Section 6 of the 1962 law empowered the minister to grant rights of occupancy to natives and required the consent and approval of the minister for the occupation and enjoyment of land rights by non-natives.

In southern Nigeria, land tenure resulted from two major influences: customary law and British rule. The customary system is based on the belief that land has spiritual value and is held in trust for the benefit of the community and future generations. Therefore, land was owned by the family or community, not by the individual. All members of the group, community, village, or family had an equal right to the land, and the chief or headman of the group held the land as a trustee for the use of the group.

It is worth noting that the Land Tenure Law of 1962 established a system of state control over land in northern Nigeria, while the customary system remained prevalent in the south. The customary system was challenged by modernisation and economic development, as individual ownership of land became more common.

The Path to the Land Use Act

In 1975, the Federal Government Anti-Inflation Task Force identified the land tenure systems as one of the causes of inflation and recommended that a decree be promulgated which would vest all land in principle in the state governments. The government rejected this recommendation.

In January 1976, the Federal Government Rent Panel also identified the land tenure system as a major hindrance to rapid economic development in the country. The panel recommended that the government should investigate the question of vesting all lands in the state. This time, the government accepted the recommendation in principle and called for further study of its practical implications.

In 1977, the Federal Government appointed the Land Use Panel to study the land tenure issue. Its terms of reference were:

1. To undertake an in-depth study of the various land tenure, land use and conservation practices in the country and recommend steps to be taken to streamline them;
2. To study and analyse the implications of a uniform land policy for the country;

• To examine the feasibility of a uniform land policy for the entire country, make recommendations and propose guidelines for their implementation; and

1. To examine steps necessary for controlling future land use and opening and developing new lands for the needs of the government and Nigeria's growing population in bothurban and rural areas and make appropriate recommendations.

Although the panel's majority did not recommend nationalisation of land, the minority report did. The Federal Government acted on the minority report in the promulgation of the Land Use Decree, which was enacted in March 1978. The rationale for the law is set out this in the preamble: “Whereas it is in the public interest that the rights of all Nigerians to the land of Nigeria be asserted and preserved by law; and whereas it is also in the public interest that the rights of all Nigerians to use and enjoy land in Nigeria and the natural fruits thereof in sufficient quantity to enable them to provide for the sustenance of themselves and their families should be assured, protected and preserved."

In furtherance of these, the law seeks to accomplish the following objectives:

(a) To remove the bitter controversies, resulting at times in loss of lives and limbs, which land is known to be generating;

(b) To streamline and simplify the management and ownership of land in the country;

(c) To assist the citizenry, irrespective of his social status, to realise his ambition and aspiration of owning the place where he and his family will live a secure and peaceful life;

(d) To enable the government to bring under control the use to which land can be put in all parts of the country and thus facilitate planning and zoning programmes for uses.

Outside of this decree (which later became an Act), there are also different land laws in various states in Nigeria. Some of these laws include Instrument Registration Laws, agency laws and other laws related to land. For example, the Land Registration Law, 2015 empowers the governor of Lagos State to create land registry divisions in the state. Any transfer or charge in respect of property must be registered within 60 days after obtaining governor's consent, where applicable, else the transaction will be void.  Also on 7th February 2022, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, governor of the state, signed the Lagos State Real Estate Regulatory Authority Bill into law. The law, which introduces significant changes to the real estate landscape in Lagos State, was enacted to protect and prevent Lagos State residents from falling prey to fraudulent real estate practitioners and to create some important obligations for stakeholders in the real estate sector.

Mixed Results of the Land Use Act

The Land Use Act has achieved some of its objectives but has also fallen short in many areas.

On the positive side, the Act has made it relatively easier for the government to acquire land for publicpurposes. Second, the law created a formal process for any Nigerian to get access to land even if they are not from the state. Third and related to the second point, the lawcreated a uniform land tenure system and land rights in Nigeria therefore reducing the arguments over rights to land. The uniformity brought some forms of predictability and simplicity in the process.

Also, the law createdpublic control and management of land in Nigeria. This potentially is a fairer management system compared to the prior case where land was held and managed by individuals, families, and communities.

While it seems that the governors have excessive powers based on this law, Section 6(1) of the law states that “the National Council of States may make regulations for the purpose of carrying this Act into effect “. The sad part is that the National Council of State has failed to do this and allowed the governors to act as they wish.

The law has noble objectives, as spelt out in the preamble quoted above. What has happened, however, is that some of the provisions of the law and their application have failed to ensure that this objective is met.

The law has some problematic provisions. However, some state governments have made the best of the situation.

Some governors have been innovative in reducing the processing times for land transactions. For example, in 2020, the Ogun State Government announced that the processing of Certificates of Occupancy (C of Os) and other title documents will not take longer than 28 days. Nasarawa State also had reforms that led to applicants requiring about 14 weeks only to be presented with CofOs. These reforms lead to faster processing and increases the speed of transactions. The laws that established the Nasarawa Geographic Information System(NAGIS)and the Abuja Geographic Information System (AGIS) have become reference points for other states to understudy and replicate.

Another innovation is how some governors and the president use their delegated powers to improve the efficiency of the process. The former Minister of Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, SAN, speaking at the Executive Session of the 11th Meeting of the National Council on Lands, Housing and Urban Development showed the impact of delegation in land management. He said: “We must, therefore, reform the process that governs the allocation of land and issuance of title documents such as Certificates of Occupancy. Today I can tell you that since 2017, when the president delegated his power under the Land Use Act to grant consent and issue Certificates of Occupancy to the Ministry, we have issued over 5,000 Certificates of Occupancy and granted 2,738 consents to land transactions”.

State governors are the major determining factor of the effectiveness of land administration. They influence the amount of investment in the land registry, modernisation and review of land laws and the speed and efficiency of the land approval process.

The establishment of the Kaduna State Geographic Information Service (KADGIS) is another example of how governors can impact land administration in the state. KADGIS digitised the land registry, and enabled residents to get valid land titles through systematic property registration and the recertification programme. As a result, the governor was able to sign over 50,000 certificates of occupancy between 2016 and 2022.  Another example is the role of the governor in determining the cost of land transactions. In 2005, Lagos State lowered the consent fee for a transfer of land rights held for more than 10years from 16% of property value to 8%. Despite this significant reduction, this fee is still among the highest land transfer fees in the world.

While these innovations have had a significant positive effect, the Land Use Act imposes a lot of problems and constraints on the land market and thus reduces the access of Nigerians to land. In 2014, the Chairman of the Presidential Technical Committee on Land Reform (PTCLR), Prof. Peter Adeniyi, said that “The LUA is the most controversial, least understood by majority of Nigerians, very confusing and contradictory in its provisions, highly undemocratic and has woefully failed to create a right and just environment to facilitate its implementation”. He also claimed that not more than 2.5% of the land in Nigeria are registered since formal land registration began in Nigeria in 1863.

In 2016, the World Bank ranked Nigeria 185th out of 189 countries in the ease of registering property.  In 2020, Nigeria had its worst ranking in this same area in the World Bank Ease of Doing Business report for that year. In registration ofproperty, Nigeria scored 29.5 out of 100. The report also stated there were 12 procedures to register land which takes about 92 days and costs 11.3% of the property value. And Nigeria’s quality of the land administration index was 8.0 out of 30. The World Bank Annual Doing Business Report (DBR) for 2018 had Nigeria’s Subnational Doing Business Report (SDBR) where each state was assessed individually. Of the four areas of reforms, (starting a business, dealing with construction permits, enforcing contracts, and registering property), the average score for all the states was 76, 69, 55 and 26 respectively (For comparison, the average score in sub-Saharan Africa for registering property was 51.)

The Land Use Act has created a distortion to the land market and reduced the law’s capacity to effectively allocate land as expected in a normal land market. One of the results is the creation of an informal market. In the informal market for land, land documents are not genuine, there is lack of clarity about the status of the land, it is difficult to hold effective transaction, the actors (not professionals) are unregulated, and the ruleof practiceis undefined. Stephen Butler (2012) estimated that more than 70% of land transactions in Nigeria are done in the informal market. This informal land market creates distortions and therefore makes land acquisition more problematic, cumbersome, and slow.

Hernando de Soto (2001) coined the term 'dead capital' to describe assets that cannot be converted to economic capital. Lack of land titles is one of the reasons for dead capital.  In his book, ‘The Mystery of Capital,’ de Soto stated “the institutions that give life to capital — that allow one to secure the interests of third parties with work and assets do not exist here.” The “here” he mentions is Cairo, Egypt which lacked a mechanism to accurately record, securely hold, and easily transfer land title from one party to another.

De Soto, claimed that about 70% of all assets in Cairo can’t be identified through a ledger. Cairo can easily be replaced with most cities in Nigeria. De Soto argues that providing the world’s poor with titles for their land, homes, and unregistered businesses, would give them an estimated $9.3 trillion in assets. He claims that the land record system in the United States and the assurance of certainty of ownership is a major contributing factor in the success and prosperity of the United States and its citizens.

According to PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Nigeria “holds at least $300 billion or as much as $900 billion worth of dead capital in residential real estate and agricultural land alone. The high value real estate market segment holds between $230 billion and $750 billion of value, while the middle market carries between $60 billion and $170 billion in value”. This is lost value to the country.

De Soto claims that in the US the most important source of funds for new business is the mortgage on a small business owner’s house. So, where entrepreneurs lack secure property rights and have no ability to leverage their home as an asset to create more business opportunities, they remain poor.

One of the most important rights to land is the ability to use the land as collateral to raise capital. This mortgaging rights though permitted by the Land Use Act, however, requires the consent of the governor. Sadly, the governors have used this power to create complex administrative procedures. A 2010 IFC-sponsored study of the process for obtaining a governor’s consent to mortgage a certificate of occupancy in Lagos State found that the average time for issuance was 240 days, and that on average 16 government officials handled the application file. Arising from the above, lenders and borrowersrely on alternatives to legal mortgages, such as unregistered assignments of property which increases the risk of the transactions.

The abuse of the powers of the governors leads to exorbitant charges for land transactions and delay in granting consent. The result is the high cost of land transaction in Nigeria. The exploitation of the power of the governor to consent to all land transactions has made government officials impose different onerous conditions on applicants. Some state governments demand for development levies to be paid, using the application to reassess recent tax payments solely based on the value of the home purchased.

It is interesting to note that the Land Use Act and the Nigerian Minerals and Mining Act (2007) created a partnership between the Federal and state governments over the control of land and mineral resources in Nigeria. While the Federal Government may claim ownership of all land endowed with mineral resources, it still needs to rely on the state governments to access and acquire the land on its behalf.  But how well has this relationship worked? In the Second Republic, there were allegations that the governors of the Unity Party of Nigerian (UPN) refused to allocate land to the National Party of Nigeria-controlled Federal Government for its housing estates in choice areas. In 2017, former minister Babatunde Fashola accused Lagos State Government of not allocating land for housing projects in the state. He claimed that “if there is any lack of co-operation it is on the part of the state government that has refused to acknowledge not to talk of approving the ministry’s request for land of the National Housing Programme in Lagos. The ministry is not frustrated by this lack of response and remains optimistic that a response will come from Lagos State.”

Also, contrary to the intention of the law, land has been acquired by the government and allowed to go to waste. This is most pronounced in the educational institutions where vast lands were compulsorily acquired for the schools but were never used by the schools. This has been observed at the Obafemi Awolowo University, University of Calabar, University of Jos, and the University of Uyo. In all these schools, trespassers have invaded the land and illegally erected structures on the land belonging to schools.

The law has not reduced corruption in the land sector. The prevalence of bribery in 2019 was highest in relation to police officers (33%)and land registry officers (26%).While there was an overall decrease in the prevalence of bribery in Nigeria since 2016, the prevalence of bribery has decreased in relation to almost all types of public officials, except for land registry officers, members of parliament and other officials. in 2019, speeding up a procedure was the most important reason for paying a bribe to doctors, nurses and midwives, other health workers (60 – 63%), members of parliament/elected government representatives (49%) and land registry officers (48%).

Contrary to one of its objectives, the policy has also not reduced the amount of litigation and conflicts about land and land rights. In 2013, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (who was at the time the governor of Lagos State) claimed that “of the roughly 150 processes that are served from the office of the Attorney-General weekly, at least a third, that is 50, of those processes are in respect of land or property dispute in the state.”

At the core of the failure of the LUA is the law itself. Some of the provisions do not align with democratic practice, as they have allocated too much power to the governor, and created no mechanism to drive effective implementation and oversight. This makes the case for the review of the law itself.

There are other failures which are largely the way the state governors and government have implemented the policy. Rather than implement the policy for the use and benefit of all Nigerians, most state governments see land as an opportunity to generate income for the state, restrict access to land and create an ineffective administrative system. As stated above, some governors have even frustrated the Federal Government to have access to land for development.

Attempted Reform of the Land Use Act

Late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua identified some critical areas of national life that his administration considered of utmost priority which were dubbed the ‘seven-point agenda’. These were: Power and Energy, Transportation, Land Reforms, Security, Education, Food Security and Wealth Creation.  Of these seven, President Yar’Adua believed that three of them are more important than the others and chose to focus principally on them. Three were identified: Land Reform, Niger Delta, and Power.

On 2 April 2009, he inaugurated a Presidential Technical Committee on Land Reform under the chairmanship of late Professor Akin L. Mabogunje. The Committee was “to determine individuals’ ‘possessory rights’ using best practices and most appropriate technology to determine the process of identification of locations and registration of title holdings,” as a forerunner to a National Land Commission. Professor Mabogunje had done extensive work and a bill was sent to the National Assembly. Titled the Land Use Act (Amendment) Act 2009 or the Constitution (First Amendment) Act 2009), it contained 14 amendments to the LUA. Among others, the proposed bill sought to:

• Vest ownership of land in the hands of those with customary right of ownership and enable farmers to use land as collateral for loans for commercial farming to boost food production in the country.
• Restrict the requirement of the governor ‘s consent to assignment only which will render such consent unnecessary for mortgages, subleases, and other land transfer forms to make transactions in land less cumbersome and facilitate economic development.

The government also planned:

• The establishment of specialised courts to determine the terms and timing of challenge/contestation of foreclosures.
• The computerisation of all land-related records at all levels.
• To persuade state governments to convert their housing corporations into land companies with mandate to develop new towns in the states.
• Reorganising the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) to provide mortgage insurance for affordable housing.
• The passage of foreclosure and securitisation laws.
• Sustaining the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria as a secondary mortgage institution refinancing mortgage loan originators.

The uniqueness of President Yar’Adua’s approach is that rather than go through the rig our of reviewing the whole Land Use Act, he used a faster approach of using another law to drive reforms. The committee was also creative, and their solution created mechanisms that states and local government areas can use to identify, demarcate, and title the land holdings of individuals.

Regrettably, the bill was not passed by the National Assembly.

Bringing land reform back on track

The Land Use Act needs to be reviewed as matter of urgency. However, a new land reform in Nigeria will likely be resisted by those who benefit from the deficient status quo. However, it is important to note the promise made by President Bola Tinubu in his election manifesto. There, he promised that:

• “Home ownership is a source of prosperity, social stability, and individual pride. A vibrant residential construction industry is essential to a healthy modern economy.
• “In conjunction with the National Assembly and state governments, we will review and revise the Land Use Act.
• “We need to streamline and rationalise the land conveyance process. In this way, we lower costs and delays and promote more efficient use of land. This more efficient allocation will bolster the housing industry and lower costs for investors and consumers.
• “Working with state governments, we will provide credits and incentives to developers of housing projects that set aside a significant portion of their projects to affordable housing.
• “With the support of state and local governments we aim to establish and implement a new social housing policy whose objective shall be to provide pathways for the poorest Nigerians to climb onto the housing ladder.
• “We will establish a coherent federal programme to provide eligible and meritorious civil servants with federal payment guarantees for fixed-rate, long term mortgages for their homes.”

It is time for the administration to walk the talk of its manifesto, and quickly too.

We need a set of land policies that meets the World Bank standards and geared towards the following:

1. Guarantee of a secure land tenure by ensuring that individuals and communities have legal recognition of their land rights, and that these rights are protected. This will reduce conflict over land issues and facilitate the land market.
2. Policies that ensure the efficient use of land by promoting the productive and sustainable use of land, while minimising waste and degradation. This will help manage the environmental concerns about land.
3. A land policy that increases land governance by ensuring that land management decisions are transparent, accountable, and participatory, and that they consider the needs and interests of all stakeholders, including local communities, smallholders, and marginalised groups. This will ensure fairness.
4. A policy that acknowledges the legitimacy of indigenous land rights systems and enforces the rights of women to land.
5. Policies that have effective supportive institutions by ensuring that land institutions are efficient, that they leverage technology and they are managed by professionals. This will help to reduce the time spent on land transactions, reduce corruption, and will promote investment in land.
6. A policy that is quick and effective in resolving land conflicts. This will reduce the time and cost of land adjudication.
7. A policy that creates an effective system that tracks land policy development and implementation and creates a feedback process to improve implementation and continual improvement.

To achieve these objectives, the following should be taken into consideration:

• Remove the Land Use Act from the constitution. This is to ensure that subsequent reviews won’t need to go through the onerous review processes of the constitution.
• Review and re-submit the proposals and bill by the Mabogunje Committee as a priority executive bill to the 10^th National Assembly. New land reform policy should have the elements defined in the bill. This will also fasten the reform process as a lot of work has been done already.
• Redefine the role of the governors as the trustees of the land to ensure this authority go along with clear responsibility.
• Remove the consent provision from most transaction and replace it with a registration after the fact.
• Persuade the President of the Court of Appeal to designate courts for land issues and make the Court of Appeal the final arbiter on land issues. The new policy should also create time limits for all land issues.
• Undertake a comprehensive review of al the state laws about land in Nigeria. Some states have used these laws to worsen the already poor state of land administration in Nigeria.
• Create a public land records system that establishes ownership, title, and transferability of property. This record should be powered with relevant technology.
• Review the process of compulsory land acquisition to become more aligned to the current international best practices of tenure, forced evictions and the use of property for public purposes. This also includes rules around the compensation of the land using market-driven valuation methods.
• Create a form of accountability mechanism so the people can understand how well the governor is managing the trust. Section 47 of the Land Use Act deals with the exclusion of certain proceedings

“(1) This Act shall have effect notwithstanding anything to the contrary in any law or rule of law including the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 and, without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing, no court shall have jurisdiction to inquire into- [Cap. C23.]

(a) any question concerning or pertaining to the vesting of all land in the Governor in accordance with the provisions of this Act; or

(b) any question concerning or pertaining to the right of the Governor to grant a statutory right of occupancy in accordance with the provisions of this Act; or

(c) any question concerning or pertaining to the right of a local government to grant a customary right of occupancy under this Act.

(2) No court shall have jurisdiction to inquire into any question concerning or pertaining to the amount or adequacy of any compensation paid or to be paid under this Act.”

To oust the jurisdiction of Nigerian courts is not consistent with the ideals of democracy. Also, while the law made the governor the trustees of the land, it created no form of accountability nor oversight on this trustee.

 Conclusion

Nigeria's current land policy, as embodied in the Land Use Act of 1978and the various laws by state governments, have had mixed outcomes.  They have failed to streamline land administration and management, and created numerous challenges and limitations that hinder equitable access and utilisation of land. As such, there is an urgent need for a new land policy that aligns with the country's developmental goals and caters to the diverse needs of Nigerians. Such a policy should be guided by principles of fairness, transparency, and efficiency, while also ensuring that land serves as a catalyst for social justice and economic growth.  The policies should promote sustainable and equitable land management practices, ensure tenure security, efficient land use, and responsible land governance, and ultimately unlock the full potential of the country's land resources for the benefit of Nigeria and all Nigerians.

*Fawehinmi, an inclusion and human resources specialist/education enthusiast, is the author of the book “The Essential Guide to Land Acquisition in Nigeria.”

References:

1. AUC-ECA-AfDB Consortium, 2010. Framework and Guideline on Land Policy in Africa
2. Adeniyi Peter. (2011) Improving Land Sector Governance in Nigeria
3. Butler Stephen (2012. Nigerian Land Markets and the Land Use Law of 1978
4. De Soto Hernando. The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere. 2003
5. Fawehinmi Yomi (2015). The Essential Guide to Land Acquisition in Nigeria.
6. Mabogunje A. Keynote address at the Land management and property tax reform in Nigeria. of Estate Management, University of Lagos, Lagos, 2003.
7. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Bringing Dead Capital to life. What Nigeria should be doing?

By Adebayo Ahmed | The question of food is one that is now on everybody’s lips in Nigeria. The food situation has worsened significantly in the last year partly driven by efforts to turn the economy around in terms of petrol subsidy removal and the foreign exchange market reform. The situation seems dire with increasing cases of violence and civil unrest associated with hunger and with fears that if the situation is not well handled, the country could be headed to the same type of civil unrest witnessed with the COVID19 palliatives in 2020 or worse.

Fig 1: Prevalence of moderate to severe food insecurity. Source: FAOStat

Although the food issue is, or at least should be, top of the agenda right now, the challenge of food security is not really new to Nigeria. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), about 34.7% of the population was experiencing moderate to severe food insecurity in the 2014 to 2016 reference period. By any standard, 34.7% was already high. However, the situation worsened almost continuously each year so much so that by the 2020-2022 reference period, an estimated 69.7% of the population was experiencing moderate to severe food insecurity, with 21.3% in the severe category. This worsening trend is backed up by data by the Cadre Harmonise which estimates that 31.5 million households in 26 states plus the FCT are expected to be in crisis in the “lean” season between June and August of 2024. This is up from the 26.5 million people estimated to have been in crisis for the same period in 2023. The total number nationwide is likely higher given that the Cadre Harmonise looks at only 26 states and the FCT. Importantly, the distribution of hunger is nationwide with almost no state spared. The combination of worsening hunger and national spread means that Nigeria is near the top of countries with hunger problems. For example, Nigeria ranks 109th out of 125 countries on the Global Hunger Index¹ and 107th out of 113 countries on the Global Food Security Index².

The rising hunger is not without consequences. According to the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey, an estimated 37% of Nigerian children under five years of age are stunted, meaning they do not develop to their full potential. According to UNICEF³, an estimated two million children already suffer from “severe and acute malnutrition”. This likely contributes to our under-five mortality rates of 107.2 per 1000 live births, the third highest of all countries compiled according to data from the World Bank⁴. Given our population relative to others, it implies that globally, a large number of children who die before the age of five from reasons, including hunger, are from Nigeria. Although the current situation seems more dire than normal, it is important to accept that this hunger crisis is not a one-off problem.t is a problem that has worsened continuously over a long period of time.

Fig 2: Food Inflation and Nominal GDP per capita growth. Source: NBS and Author’s calculations

 Causes of Food Security Crisis

The causes of the food security crisis are actually very simple and can be thought of from two perspectives. The first being that food prices have risen systematically faster than household incomes. As is clear from Figure 2 above, average incomes have grown significantly slower than food prices since 2015. This means households have been getting continuously squeezed and food has become increasingly unaffordable. The measure of average income used here is simply average nominal GDP per capita but if you incorporate income inequality then it is likely you will see a tighter squeeze at the lower end of the income ladder. Things have gotten worse in the last year but it should be clear to all that the situation has been brewing for almost a decade.

The causes of rising food prices have been rehashed over and over again but they are worth repeating regardless. Monetary policy has been loose, leading to the classic demand push inflation of more money chasing fewer goods. Trade policy has been restrictive, leading to supply disruptions which have put upward pressure on food prices. Interstate logistics continues to be challenging, leading to a wide variation in prices across the country and household paying more than they could have been paying if logistics were better. Farming techniques continue to be “traditional” and rain-driven, leading to mostly low agricultural yields. Climate change has made it more difficult for farmers to produce reliably. The security situation has continued to worsen especially in key agricultural areas, limiting access to usually productive farmlands. And so on.

The last point highlights the second perspective for the cause of the worsening food crisis: livelihoods i.e. whatever people do to earn a living. To be clear, livelihoods here does not refer only to those of farmers, but to barbers and street vendors, and bankers, and so. And as can be seen from the 2023 Cadre Harmonise which estimated the distribution of food insecurity by state, there are more people under hunger stress in Lagos State than in any other state. The majority of people in Lagos are not employed in the agriculture sector. Food prices may rise fast enough that even people whose livelihoods are not disrupted can become food insecure. But the other perspective is that people’s livelihoods may be disrupted so that even with the same food prices, they no longer have the capacity to afford to keep themselves out of food insecurity.

The disruption to livelihoods in rural communities is a good place to start in thinking about this perspective. The deteriorating security situation and climate change are both combining to make earning a livelihood from agriculture increasingly difficult. Farmers in many communities cannot access lands because of terrorists, bandits, kidnappers, and so on. In other places where they can access land, climate change is leading to more irregular weather, making their production more volatile thus impacting their livelihoods. On the urban front, the absence of decent job growth and almost consistent economic shocks, from the 2015 oil price crash to COVID19, to recurring foreign exchange crises, have put a similar dent on livelihoods and income growth. Both factors mean that almost everyone is now feeling the squeeze, though the poor (who are in the majority) are disproportionately impacted.

The Path Out of the Crisis

Given that the crisis is seemingly largely about affordability, the path out of the crisis likely involves tackling affordability both immediately and in the long-term. In terms of immediate responses, the key is to on the one hand get money directly into the pockets of households, and on the other hand take action to put downward pressure on food prices. The government, at the federal, state, and local levels, should have a lot more money flowing to their coffers given that petrol subsidies were removed, and that the weakening of the national currency should mean more Naira from crude oil revenues. Re-directing some of this windfall directly into the pockets of Nigerians would automatically improve their capacity to afford food and will do so immediately. There has been talk of a cash transfer programme by the Ministry of Finance with 15 million households targeted. It is however time for more action and less talk. And of course, states and local government areas that are also benefitting from the windfall should not be let off the hook.

Some may argue that there is a risk of putting even more pressure on inflation if more money is funneled directly to households. This does not have to be the case in practice. If the social transfers are funded by already existing revenue and not by an increase in money supply through increased domestic debt or central bank financing, then the impact on inflation should be minimal.

And of course, putting money into the pockets of households however has to go hand in hand with other attempts to increase food supply and put downward pressure on food prices. On this, there are many short-term options on the table. Can we do anything to immediately reduce the portion of food prices that is due to logistical challenges and corruption on the highways? Does it make sense to have a sixty to seventy percent tariff plus duty on imported wheatand rice, at a time when food prices are relatively sky-high and unaffordable?

Dealing with the currency issues, which has resulted in the Naira weakening so much that most food items in Nigeria are cheaper than in some neighbouring countries also needs to be resolved. International demand for food items from Nigeria has increased putting upward pressure on prices. A weakening Naira means that food traders would rather collect foreign currency than sell to domestic consumers. As the currency weakens further, domestic prices for tradeable food items would have to adjust which would worsen the affordability challenges. The problems on the macroeconomic front transmit to very real challenges. Stabilising things on the macroeconomic front, specifically the exchange rate, is therefore a necessary part of the immediate measure to deal with the challenge.

On a related note, it may be tempting to try to limit the impact of the exchange rate on food prices by other means such as trying to limit cross-border trade or trying to increase domestic supply to keep domestic prices lower than prices in neighbouring countries. Both temptations are likely to be unsuccessful. We have a long history of trying and failing at restricting regional trade and the only likely result of attempts to do that now would be more smuggling and more illicit and informal trade. More importantly, restricting trade today would disincentivise farmers from doing all they can to boost domestic output tomorrow and reap the rewards of demand from international markets. The same can be said for releasing food items from strategic reserves. Given the strong demand from neighbouring countries, the food items would likely simply flow there, unless maybe they are distributed directly to households.

Longer-term Solutions

Beyond the immediate term, the longer-term solutions have to revolve around reversing the trends observed in Figure 2. That is, working to ensure that average incomes grow faster than food prices.

Conventional macroeconomic management is the starting point for ensuring that food inflation does not spiral out of control like it has done in the recent past. This means having money supply that is not growing systematically too fast, and continuing to diversify exports to minimise the risk of currency crises. In the face of macroeconomic challenges, even excellent policy on all other fronts will struggle to yield the desired results.

Improving incomes and resilience of households is the second major long-term agenda. The richer the household, the more likely they will be able to cope with food price shocks. The institutionalisation of social protection will also help ensure that households have something to fall back on in the event of more serious shocks. In this context, it is important to realise that improving resilience is not just about rural farmers but also about urban poor households, or those who are at risk of falling into poverty. For urban households, this means better jobs.

Fig 3 - a; Rice yields

 

Fig 3 - b: Tomato yields

Fig 3 - c: cereal yields

Fig 3 - d: Cassava yields

For rural agriculture-based households, this means improving productivity. Agricultural productivity is still relatively low and this is one of the foundations for domestic supply problems and high food insecurity in rural communities. As is clear from the yield on rice, tomatoes, cereals, and even cassava, yields in Nigeria are relatively very low. Improving productivity should therefore be the number-one agenda. This agenda would involve transforming farmers from subsistence farmers who farm to survive, to entrepreneurs who farm to get incomes. Turning farmers to entrepreneurs would have to involve investments in yield-improving infrastructure such as irrigation facilities, improving seedlings and seeds’ availability, improving knowledge about best practices through better extension services, improving rural security, improving resilience to climate change, improving farm-to-market infrastructure and logistics. And so on. As shown in Figure 4, the difference in prices between states is so large that just cutting logistics costs from moving food around can have a significant impact on reducing prices.

However, working to improve domestic supply and reduce costs is not enough. It is also important to build on and improve resilience to shocks in supply. This does not only involve producing more food. It involves two other factors, the first of which is storage. Storage, in the simplest of terms, is keep food when things are good to eat when things are not so good. The cyclical nature of our weather patterns in Nigeria means that we are no strangers to the importance of food storage, even if occasionally we like to throw around words like hoarders and saboteurs. Improving the quality and organisation of storage facilities should mean we are better able to cope with shocks to supply.

The second factor is trade. International trade. Leveraging international trade and building strong trade networks essentially ensures that supply is more resilient. For example, if domestic demand for a particular food item is more than current domestic supply, perhaps because the rains did not arrive on time, or because a flood damaged some output, or because the farmers techniques were not that great, international supply helps minimise the risks that the demand-supply gaps would cause scarcity or price increases. The same applies for situations when supply outstrips demand. International trade ensures that excess supply can go somewhere else and not lead to a price collapse which would also hurt livelihoods of farmers.

The second factor is trade. International trade. Leveraging international trade and building strong trade networks essentially ensures that supply is more resilient. For example, if domestic demand for a particular food item is more than current domestic supply, perhaps because the rains did not arrive on time, or because a flood damaged some output, or because the farmers techniques were not that great, international supply helps minimise the risks that the demand-supply gaps would cause scarcity or price increases. The same applies for situations when supply outstrips demand. International trade ensures that excess supply can go somewhere else and not lead to a price collapse which would also hurt livelihoods of farmers.

Getting to grips with the food security challenge is urgent but there are enough tools available to the government to turn things around and ensure that we do continue to be one of the basket cases of hunger in the world. But it will require quick action to do things today, and the foresight and the stamina to undertake more long-term, strategic and coordinated actions to remove Nigeria permanently from the hunger map. The current episode of high food prices should raise the status of the lingering food security challenges in Nigeria and propel policy makers to take immediate and longer-term decisions to sustainably reverse the trend. Food security should be seen as national security.

Photo Credit: Mansur Ibrahim

Footnotes

[1] https://www.globalhungerindex.org/nigeria.html

[2] https://impact.economist.com/sustainability/project/food-security-index/explore-countries/nigeria

[3] https://www.unicef.org/nigeria/nutrition

[4] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.DYN.MORT?most_recent_value_desc=true

By Ayobami Ayorinde | In the last two weeks, the Federal Government unfolded some emergency measures in the agricultural sector. On July 10, the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security,

By Celestine Okereke | A feature of revenue distribution in Nigeria in the past few decades is that some federal agencies receive a percentage of the revenues they collect on behalf of the Federation.

By Tayo Agunbiade | The results of the recently-held general election have once again confirmed the continued under-representation and marginalisation of women in politics and governance in Nigeria. Women constitute 49.3%of Nigeria’s total population, but only manage to secure 4.69% of the executive and legislative positions on offer at the federal and state levels in the elections held between February and March this year. The country’s highest law-making and decision-making bodies are thus guaranteed to remain excessively male-dominated for another four years. Deliberate policy and other steps must be taken to address this imbalance in the immediate and in the medium to long terms.

At the federal and state levels, Nigeria has a total of 1,534 electable positions. This is broken down as follows: two President and Vice President; 72 state governors and deputy governors; 469 federal legislators (made up of 109 senators and 360 members of the House of Representatives); and 991 members of the states’ Houses of Assembly. Out of these, women won only 72 positions in the 2023 general election. This amounts to a paltry 4.69% of the total executive and legislative positions on offer in the 7^th electoral cycle in the 4^th Republic, which commenced in 1999.

Of the 72 women elected in 2023, seven are deputy governors while the remaining 65 are federal and state legislators. On the bright side, there is a marginal increase over the performance of women in the 2019 electoral cycle when only 66 women were elected in all, with only four being deputy governors. This shows that overall female representation improved by 9.09% while the number of deputy governors increased by 75%. Also, there are some states, like Kwara, where female legislators in the state parliament shot up by 500%. However, these marginal gains are diluted by reversals at the federal parliament and maintenance of the gender status quo among the president, the vice president and state governors.

Great Expectations, Grim Results

There was an expectation that women would fare better in the 2023 electoral cycle. There has been a consistent increase in women’s interest and participation in Nigeria’s political and electoral fields. This awareness has also spilled over to civil society and over the years there has been high-level advocacy for more female representation in political and electoral leadership. So, what went wrong for the Nigeria’s female candidates?

For the presidential race, there was a drop in the number of female candidates seeking to occupy Aso Rock.  This time around there was only one candidate namely: Ms Chichi Ojei of the Allied Peoples’ Movement (APM).  This was a reduction from six women who featured on the ballot paper as presidential candidates in the 2019 election.  The reason for this is due tothe fact that in 2019, there were 91 political parties, and many of them, unlike the older parties,welcomed women to contest in the presidential election on their platforms.  To date, none of the older and main political parties have presented a woman candidate for the top posts of president and vice-president.

With the exception of Adamawa State, the male-centric culture adopted by most of the main parties on electable executive positions was replicated in the candidacy for the gubernatorial race. History was made in the state when for the first time a woman-Senator Aisha Dahiru, popularly known as Binani- was selected to run on the platform of aruling national party, the All Progressives Congress (APC).Indeed, it must be stated that this is the second time APC would select a woman as its gubernatorial candidatein North-East geo-political zone. In 2015, late Senator Aisha Jummai Al-Hassan was the party’s gubernatorial candidate in Taraba State.

There were also a handful of women as governorship candidates on the platforms of relatively smaller parties such as Binta Umar of the Action Alliance from Jigawa State; Hajiya Fatima Abubakar of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) in Borno State; Beatrice Itubor of the Labour Party (LP) in Rivers State; and Khadijah Iya Abdullahi of All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) in Niger State. This too is commendable. But regardless of this and by all standards, this electoral journey has proved to be a disappointment for women in Nigeria.

As is known, legislative institutions are at the heart of a democracy and globally there is vigorous consciousness about the importance of women’s agency and voices in law-making.  Nigerian women are part of the groundswell of global advocacy for participation, representation and inclusion in national and state parliaments.

The number of women who contested for seats in the federal legislature was 380 (8.9%), out of a total of 4,223 candidates. A closer look at the breakdown of the candidates to the upper and lower chambers shows the following: Of the 1,101 candidates to the Senate, 92 were women; while there were 288 women of a total of 3,122 candidates for the House of Representatives.  Only three of 92 women candidates won seats to the 109-seat Senate and 14 out of 288 to the 360-member House of Representatives. This means a total of 17 women will occupy seats in the 469-member National Assembly.

It is interesting to note that about 96% of the female contestants for the federal parliament did not win. This has been the trend. In 2019, 95.5 % of the contestants to the National Assembly suffered electoral losses, while in 2015, 94% of female candidates failed to win seats. This tells us the magnitude of defeat being experienced by women during the past few election cycles.

The critical issue at the other end of the spectrum is the drop in the number of seats occupied by women in the National Assembly. For the 10^th National Assembly, female representation stands at 3.6%. In 2019, there were 21 women legislators (4.5%) and 28 (6%) in 2015. The data also points to the fact that women’s interests, voices and perspectives across the country will continue to be excluded and marginalised in the making of national legislation and the constitution review exercises.

One of the consequences of under-representation is the low success rate of women-related legislations. It will be recalled that the Gender and Equitable Opportunities Bill sponsored by Senator Biodun Olujimi is yet to pass through legislative hurdles since it was first presented in 2015. It was voted down based on reasons which include religion and culture as stated by some male legislators.

In 2021, Hon. Nkeiruka Onyejeocha alongside 85 other legislators in the House of Representatives sponsored an amendment to the 1999 Constitution to create additional 111 seats which will be exclusively for women in the National Assembly. Although the bill passed its second reading, but overtime, it failed to garner the required support.

The most recent instance of how low representation negatively impacts women-related legislations occurred on 8^thMarch 2022, when five Gender Bills which were drafted to amongst other things increase inclusion and representation of women in governance, were roundly rejected during the constitution alteration exercise. The bills address women’s rights, indigeneship, citizenship and affirmative action in appointments, as well as the executive committees of political parties and reserved seats for women in national and state assemblies. Yet there was a concerted effort on the part of several male lawmakers to see that none of these bills see the light of day. This was despite the fact that all 21 women legislators were members of the Constitution Review Committees set up by each chamber of the National Assembly.

Table 1 below shows the gender landscape of Nigeria’s federal legislature from 2015 to 2023 and highlights the extent of male domination of this national deliberative institution.

Table 1: Gender Landscape of 469-Seat National Assembly (2015-2023)

The outcome of the electoral race at the state level was no different.Of the 10, 231 contestants to the State Houses of Assembly, only 1,019 (9.9%) were women of which only 48 won seats to the 991-member State legislature. This indicates a success rate of a paltry 4.71% for female candidates at the state level. Besides the data revealing a 95.28% electoral loss at this level for women candidates, it also shows that there is only a negligible increase of seats in comparison with 2019.   Women gained only seven seats more than the 41 won in 2019, to record a slight increment of 4.1 % to 4.7 %.

Table 2 below shows the gender landscape of Nigeria’s state legislature from 2015 to 2023 and also highlights the extent of male domination at the state level.

 Table 2: Gender Landscape of 991 State Houses of Assembly (2015-2023)

As indicated in Table 2, the overall landscape in the state parliaments is similar to that which prevails at the national level, even though this legislature is generally regarded as being closer to the grassroots communities.

Mixed Results at State Level

Notwithstanding the deepening gender gap in the legislative arm of government, some history has also been recorded at the sub-national level which must be hailed. For example, worthy of note is the fact that for the first time, the elections have produced a handful of women to the Houses of Assembly in the northern states of Kwara, Taraba and Kogi.

Indeed, Kwara State in North-Central Nigeria has for the first time recorded five women in its 24-seat Assembly. This is the second highest number of women, after Ekiti State in South-West Nigeria which has six out of 26 members. Against the backdrop of women’s share in the number of seats in past, these are milestones.

Marginal increases occurred in several states. For example, Ondo State went from one to three female lawmakers; Kaduna and Plateau both went from one to two; and Edo and Nasarawa went from zero to one each. Akwa Ibom went from two to four female lawmakers; while others like Bayelsa and Delta maintain their status quo of two female legislators each.

States such as Imo, Gombe, Niger and Rivers where previously there were a handful of female state legislators, are now left with none. Others like Cross River, Ebonyi, Enugu and Ogun saw a slight drop in their previous numbers. For example, Cross River went down from four women to one; Ebonyi from three to two women, and Ogun from four women to two.

Table 3 below provides the data of women in the State Houses of Assembly for 2019 and 2023.

Table 3: Female Representation in State Houses of Assembly (2019-2023)

Source: Dailytrust.com

Of the thirty-six states, fifteen states have no female representation in their Houses of Assembly for the in-coming legislative tenure. The states with zero female legislators in their houses of assembly are: Abia, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Imo, Jigawa, Kano, Kebbi, Katsina, Niger, Osun, Rivers, Sokoto, Yobe and Zamfara. In the out-going tenure of 2019-2023, a similar number of states do not have female representation. They are: Abia, Bauchi, Borno, Edo, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Nasarawa, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe and Zamfara.

Undoubtedly, there is a general decline in women’s electoral fortunes from the perspective of representation. The total number of women in both legislatures in 2019 and 2023 underscores this fact.  In 2019 for the joint federal and state legislatures of 1,460 seats, there were 62 women (4.3%); while in 2023, only 65 women will sit in the federal and state legislatures (4.5%).  Overall, this is a very marginal improvement in the number of women within public decision-making between 2019 and 2023. The marginal wins and heavy losses at the ballot box show that much more needs to be done to address the hurdles encountered by female politicians.

In terms of female parliamentarians, Nigeria lags on the continent. Rwanda has the highest proportion of seats held by women at 61.25%, which is also the highest figure in the world. In other parts of Africa, South Africa, Namibia and Uganda have 46%, 44% and 34% female parliamentarians respectively. In West Africa, Senegal has the highest number of women in its national parliament at 42.4% of the seats.  Guinea and Mali have 29.63% and 26.45% respectively.  Republic of Niger has 26%, Benin Republic, 25%, Togo, 18.7% Ghana, 14.5%, Sierra Leone, 12.33%, Cote d’Ivoire, 12.5%, Liberia, 10.96%, Gambia 8.6% and Burkina Faso has 6.3%.  Nigeria, the largest country in the sub-region has the lowest number of women in parliament at 3.6%.

Some Reasons Why Women Lose at the Polls

To be sure, it is not the lack of participation per se that has caused the loss on such a scale by female contestants and left state institutions largely male dominated. There are other societal influences that hinder women from achieving the desired electoral results and over the years, there have been deep discussions about these factors.

Possibly the most pressing challenge to Nigeria’s electoral democracy is monetisation of politics and vote-buying. This is a recurring problem which has not been adequately addressed by the law.  Among other provisions, sections85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90 in the 2022 Electoral Act list: offences in relation to finances of a political party; period to be covered in annual statement; power to limit contributions to a political party; and limitations on election expenses of political parties etc.  Butthe lack of enforcement continues to blight the political and electoral system.

Similarly, the Electoral Act does not have any provisions to address the lack of inclusion of women in political party hierarchies and candidates’ nomination and selection lists.  Nigeria’s electoral laws must be strengthened to become more inclusive and INEC as the agency at the helm of electoral matters must through diligent enforcement, ensure total compliance.

Women politicians are also subjected to a variety of other factors which also includes bias in the media, god-fatherism, trado-cultural and religious barriers and so on. Similarly, election violence has seen loss of lives and destruction of property. For example, some women have lost their lives before, during and after elections.  The reported cases of Emily Aborishade, Joyce Maimuna Katai, Salome Abuh and Emilia Gilbert from Ekiti, Nasarawa, Kogi and Rivers states respectively, and mor

e recently, Victoria Chintex in Kaduna State, come to mind. These killings must not be swept under the carpet, and perpetrators of all acts of violence must be held accountable. It is important to make the environment safe for all candidates, especially marginalised groups like women.

Historical Precedence and Patterns of Political Exclusion

Historically, women have been excluded and marginalised in electoral politics, public decision-making institutions, constitution-drafting and governance in general.   Hence, for further insights, it is relevant to trace the roots of women’s under-representation in political leadership and elective representation back in history.

This pattern of imbalance can be directly linked to the British colonial era, when provisions in the 1922 Clifford Constitution stated that elections to the Legislative Council of Nigeria were for “Every male person who is a British subject or a native of the Protectorate of Nigeria, who is of the age of twenty-one years or upwards…”

This set off a process which saw Nigeria’s electoral and political party systems being built on male power and authority. There was collusion between the forms of colonial and indigenous patriarchy which saw colonial statutes and ordinances such as the one mentioned above, suit the male hegemony culture already being exhibited by early nationalists who excluded women from their mainstream political structures.

From then on, the evidence points to the over-representation of men in public life and domination of the political party structures, attendance of constitutional conferences and so on.

The early political parties such as the Nigerian National Democratic Party and the Nigerian Youth Movement built and nurtured systems which were centred round male political aspirations, interests and needs, with the women’s sections left to deal with mundane matters. With each wave of political parties from the nationalist era through to the First, Second, Third and the current Fourth republics, political institutions remain largely male-centric.

The historical evidence shows that during the 1950s, the new constitutions (Macpherson of 1951 and Lyttleton of 1954) allowed limited franchise for female taxpayers and later on, universal suffrage for everyone in the Eastern and Western regions of Nigeria. However, those women who were eligible to participate and contest in elections faced stiff resistance from their male colleagues.  Indeed, this may account for why Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti is quoted as saying, her failure to win at the intermediate round of the Electoral College in 1951 was due to “male chauvinism.” Again, in June 1957, she reiterated this point in a statement to the press that “Women are used as election tools.”

During Nigeria’s First Republic from 1960 to 1965, only four women won elections. They were Margaret Ekpo, Janet Mokelu and Ekpo Young to the Eastern House of Assembly and Esther Soyannwo to the Western House of Assembly. Each woman is on record as having to stave off resistance by their male political associates. Thus, there is a historical pattern of systemic male bias and overwhelming exclusion of women from the country’s politics and governance, which as the data shows, still exists today.

Recommendations

As the data shows, despite their share of the population, women are being politically short-changed in the executive and legislative arms of government. There are wide gaps between the number of men and women who govern, hold positions of political leadership and occupy seats in the federal and state legislatures.

The answer to women’s substantive representation in the country’s public life lies in several measures. To reverse the continued marginalisation of women in politics and governance, the next administration should undertake the following:

• Conduct a forensic review on the status of women vis-à-vis their massive loss at the polls from 2015 to now, as well as their overall participation and representation in public affairs;

• Implement the April6,2022, Federal High Court ruling on 35% Affirmative Action in favour of women;
• Appoint an equal number of female and male ministers, or at the minimum, implement the 35% affirmative action for women in line with the ruling mentioned above;
• Ensure that the women are placed in substantive ministerial postsincluding those perceived to be traditional male portfolios.
• Implement and enforce the revised National Gender Policy 2021- 2026. Its key planks are designed to promote gender equality, political leadership and social inclusion across the three tiers of government. This is to address the massive losses experienced by women in the past three elections.
• Make social inclusion a key plank of its administration
• Provide (through an Executive Bill) the legal framework for the National Gender Policy for compliance and to ensure its enforceability
• Explore the principle of proportional representation to ensure that women who got as far as the ballot box are included in federal and state governments
• Promote a caucus of male gender champions in the parties, state and national assemblies to promote gender-responsive legislation;
• Promote the He-for-She Movement into an effective and vibrant coalition across religious and political divides;
• Sponsor legislations ontemporary special mechanism by the 10^th National Assemblysuch as reserved seats for women in state and federal legislative institutions. This is known to work and has boosted women’s representation in legislatures in Europe, Latin America and United Kingdom. Closer to home, this kind of quota system has significantly altered parliamentary landscapes in South Africa, Tunisia, Namibia and Mozambique etc;
• Influence the reversal of all of the five rejected Gender Bills mentioned above, so they can be passed and signed into law by the president towards the socio-political empowerment and growth of girls and women;
• Pass the Gender and Equitable Opportunities Bill 2021 and alsoensure appropriate budgeting in order to effect to its implementation;
• Lead by example in the ruling party and then persuade other political parties to adopt gender quotas in their executive organisational and hierarchical structures as recommended by Uwais Report in 2007. In South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC) has perfected its voluntary party quota system and women form significant representation in its parliament.

Other stakeholders should also:

• Gender advocates must work on nomenclature that would be embraced by faith and culture leaders, so pursuance of gender-friendly legislation will face less resistance
• Conduct enlightenment programmes about the meaning of Gender Equality and its benefits for the empowerment of girls, women and Nigerians in general;
• Build a coalition of women (like in Senegal to achieve the Parity Law) across party lines and CSOs to organise, strategise to diminish the shadow of political, electoral and traditional patriarchy;
• Build on the positive wave of some political parties towards women’s representation in the governorship elections and lead by further example in local government councils;
• Reform the composition of Constitution Amendment/Alteration Exercises to make it more inclusive and reflect Nigeria’s population in order to achieve favourable constitutional guarantees for girls and women;
• INEC should consider sponsoring amendments to the 2022 Electoral Act which will ensure promotion and compliance of inclusivity on political party quotas and candidates’ lists etc;
• Work with journalists to eliminate bias of all forms against women politicians in traditional and social media spaces.

*Mrs Agunbiade, journalist, historian and gender advocate, is the author of the book: ‘Emerging from the Margins: Women’s Experiences in Colonial and Contemporary Nigerian History’

Sources:

• Dailytrust.com,Meet 48 Women who made it to state assemblies,’Saturday March 23, 2023
• International IDEA, https://www.idea.int
• https://www.inecnigeria.org
• Premiumtimes.ng,IWD 2023: Nigeria falling in women’s political participation, March 10, 2023
• Statista: Percentage of women in national parliaments in African countries 2022, www.statista.com
• Women Data Hub https://data.unwomen.org
• Women Liberty and Development Initiative, 2019

 

By Akinyemi Akinyugha | In the second week of September 2022, massive flooding was reported in Nigeria arising from an overflow of the River Benue, affecting states on the river path from the North East to the South East and the Niger Delta parts of the country. The flooding got worse in October and may stretch into November. Initially, discharge of excess water from the upstream Lagdo Dam in Cameroon was identified as the cause of the flooding. However, the Honourable Minister of Water Resources, Engineer Suleiman Adamu, later clarified that the flooding occurred as a result of torrential rainfall overwhelming the River Benue and its tributaries.

The number of people affected by the flood is still being documented. As at the last count, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) reported that 2,504,095 persons are affected by the flood, with at least 500 people declared dead.¹

Enough evidence abounds that a significant portion of Nigeria is flood-prone. Though the tally is not fully in, the flooding this year will rank among the worst in Nigeria’s history, probably on the same scale with the 2012 episode. Unfortunately, this won’t be the last and future occurrences may be worse, given changing weather patterns. Finding proactive and sustainable solutions, rather than episodic and reactive responses, to Nigeria’s perennial flooding challenge is thus an urgent imperative.

 How does flooding occur?

The glossary of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (IPCC SREX) defines a flood as “the overflowing of the normal confines of a stream or other body of water, or the accumulation of water over areas that are not normally submerged.”²

Floods occur when excess water inundates a particular watershed. As the name implies, a watershed is an entire area of land that “sheds” or drains water into a specific waterbody. Most river system are dendritic, with several streams connected as funnels to recharge water into the river. Watersheds vary in size and characteristics: they can be small or large.

When intense rain falls over a small watershed, particularly in urban areas where there are many concrete and other impervious structures, flash flood occurs. Its effect is usually exacerbated when there are poorly maintained, clogged drainages and channels.

However, in large watersheds such as River Benue, flooding occurs in two major ways. First, it occurs when significant water is discharged from an upstream dam e.g., Lagdo Dam in Cameroon. The second is the more frequent reason: flooding arises when torrential rainfall occurs in the highland areas and tributaries serving the river. The resultant effect is the inundation of the river channel and its adjoining communities. A demonstration of the scale of flooding that occurred this year is shown in the satellite image below which compares two satellite images of upstream section of River Benue in Numan, Adamawa State in January and September 2022.The images show a 2.5-times increase in the width of the river channel as a result of flooding.

A section of Benue River at Numan, Adamawa in January 2022 (about 400m wide)

Same section of Benue River at Numan in September 2002 (1020m wide)

To solve the perennial flooding crisis, Nigeria needs a big and bold visionary programme like the Netherland’s Delta Works and River Room programmes

In 1953, the Netherlands was flooded by water from the North Sea, leading to the inundation of approximately 9% of farmlands and causing 8,361 fatalities. In response, the Netherlands Government launched a massive flood protection programme, the Delta Works, whose main objectives were to protect the Netherlands from high water, ensure sufficient supply of freshwater and make the country climate-proof. The project comprised 13 dams as well as 10,250 miles of dikes, levees and barriers to protect areas within and around the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt from flood. This ambitious $5bn works, which lasted for 24 years, ensured that Holland, despite being a low-lying country, is extensively protected from flood and has continual supply of drinking and irrigation water. The risk of flooding was reduced from the typical one in 100 years to one in 4,000 years³.

Nigeria needs its own version of the Delta Works and River Room programmes and should set out a big and bold vision for a climate-smart integrated water resources management, which seeks to turn this environmental disaster into a blessing.

Currently, the main agencies empowered by law to act on flood control and watershed management at the federal level are the River Basin Development Authorities (RBDAs). However, these RBDAs appear to focus on water resources management from the prism of agricultural utility of water and have largely played a bit-part role in flood management.  Other relevant entities of government such as NEMA (under the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, and Social Development),the Nigeria Hydrological Service Agency, and the Nigerian Meteorological Agency mainly carry out predictive and reactive activities.

To galvanise action, we need a special Presidential Committee for National Flood Risk Management, which shall draw membership from indigenous and global water resources and environmental management experts, with active support of all the ministries, departments and agencies relevant to flood risk management. The committee’s mandate will be to develop a comprehensive national flood risk assessment and management programme, which takes into cognisance predicted climate change scenarios for the country. The committee will develop specific recommendations on which combinations of natural and built flood management interventions are best suited for the major watersheds/river basins and provide a cost estimate as well as strategic execution plan for these interventions. Backing the committee’s recommendations with appropriate legislations and guaranteed funding would ensure sustainability of the proposed interventions over the febrile and sometimes unstable political and budget circles of Nigeria.

Already, in October 2022 the Federal Government has approved a National Emergency Flood Preparedness and Response Plans to mitigate and reduce the impact of flood but it is unclear if this plan contains a comprehensive flood risk assessment and management plan for the country.

The solution to the flooding crises can be found in a combination of grey and green infrastructure

Finally, in developing the interventions, we must resist the notion that we can dam away all the “damned” flood waters, based on the philosophy that only concrete and steel infrastructure – dams, levees, dykes, barriers, etc. – can effectively deliver flood risk management. A combination of grey and green infrastructure will be required to deliver sustainable, climate-proof outcomes, considering the diverse ecosystem in Nigeria.

As many have suggested, the Dadin Hausa Dam, conceptualised in the late 1970s as the recipient dam for Cameroon’s Lagdo Dam, may have mitigated the flooding experienced in these communities. While this might be true to some extent, the solutions to perennial flooding goes beyond concrete structures. In the face of threats arising from climate change, nature-based solutions or natural flood management are the most sustainable alternative due to the potential ecosystem benefits they deliver over concrete and steel structural solutions.

Water, they say, will always find its level; hence, at the minimum, it is important that natural flood plains be restored to give enough room for rivers to flow before considering the introduction of dams. This will reduce downstream river flow and inundation of low-lying communities. In addition to dredging rivers where necessary, secondary channels and lakes can also be created to divert some water off the flood paths. Watershed-based forest regeneration, particularly around hillsides, should be carried out to slow down runoff from the hills into the rivers.

At the sub-national level, state and local governments need to be more committed to climate-smart land use planning and development. A revolution in our urban development philosophy and practice to allow for ecosystem-friendly development is long overdue to accelerate mitigation of the impact of extreme weather events, predicted to happen over the next few years.

Since floods occur when excess water flows above a watershed’s drainage capacity, urban development that slows down, soaks and spreads flood waters should be encouraged. This can be achieved by encouraging the use of rain gardens and vegetation over concrete pavements in private residences. Housing developers in flood prone areas should also be made to demonstrate flood-resilient aspects of their designs before permits are issued.

Sub-national governments should prioritise restoration of wetlands whilst banning any development on them while urban greening initiatives should be encouraged. Basic flood management measures including the regular clearance and maintenance of channels and drainages should also be carried out.

More ambitious countries like China have created several sponge cities within their highly urbanised city-clusters: sponge cities are large green spaces(such as trees, gardens and parks) within main cities, acting like a sponge to soak flood water and gently releasing the water into the environment. An example of a similar space in Nigeria is the Lekki Conservation Centre, Lagos. More of such green spaces should be created in areas prone to flooding.

Whatever solutions would be adopted, there is an urgent need to act decisively to institute a robust, risk-based flood management system in Nigeria. The cost of doing otherwise is better imagined than experienced; hence, the time to act is now.

Dr. Akinyemi Akinyugha is the Ekiti State Project Coordinator for the Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project (NEWMAP). He holds a PhD in Engineering (Environmental/Geo-Technical) from the University of Cambridge, UK.

Footnotes

[1]https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2022/10/17/nema-2-5-million-persons-affected-by-flooding/

[2] IPCC, 2012: Glossary of terms. In: Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation [Field, C.B., V. Barros, T.F. Stocker, D. Qin, D.J. Dokken, K.L. Ebi, M.D. Mastrandrea, K.J. Mach, G.-K. Plattner, S.K. Allen, M. Tignor, and P.M. Midgley (eds.)]. A Special Report of Working Groups I and II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, and New York, NY, USA, pp. 555-564

^[3]Delta Works Flood Protection, Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt Delta, Netherlands. Accessed online: https://www.water-technology.net/projects/delta-works-flood-netherlands/