The Land Swap Initiative of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in the Context of Nigeria’s Legal Framework on Public Private Partnership

Abstract

Faced with huge infrastructure deficits and corresponding funding challenges, the FCT (FCT) Administration instituted the land-for-infrastructure-swap scheme in which the private sector was granted land under the Land Use Act (LUA) in exchange for the provision of specified public infrastructure in a Greenfield district at no financial costs to FCT Administration. As a technique of land asset management of public authorities, such infrastructure would, prima facie, include road, electricity and water networks. Though inspired by the National Policy on PPP and the global best practices on development of new cities, the FCT Administration did not follow the extant provisions of the ICRC Act in deference to the LUA, which has made comprehensive provisions on grant and utilization of lands in Nigeria. It was argued that the FCT initiative could not have been land swap, as the object of swap was for things other than land. The paper however established that land swap, as a technique for land-based infrastructure financing, cannot be restricted to exchange of land only. Exchange of land for infrastructure, as seen in Egypt, Denmark, China, Japan and many other countries, were equally referred as land swap schemes, and hence, the FCT scheme eminently qualified as land swap. In reviewing the concept of ownership and the wide powers granted to the Governor under the LUA as well as its entrenchment in the Constitution, which the Supreme Court of Nigeria observed as having extraordinary status, it is obvious that the FCT Minister, by a community reading of sections 299 and 301 of the Constitution and section 13 of the FCT Act, could stipulate infrastructure provision as a condition for land grant without being subjected to the extant legal framework on PPP, and hence recommend the deepening of the scheme.