History: What is Gazette Document?

Before the Land-Use Act in 1978 was enacted, Traditional
families who had so much land power under their control
benefited from taking pleasure over all the rights given
to the land owners. Because of this mega-power they
wielded with land, they gave out lands to individuals
under a tenancy system for them to use the land either
for fishing or farming while they still maintained control
over the portion of the land given to the individual. It
wasn’t until the creation of Lagos Executive
Development Board in the 1950s that individuals where
now able to acquire land from the board directly in
exchange for a sum of money instead of going to meet
the traditional families to obtain land. This led to the
Traditional Families now

splitting their lands to keep some for the family use and
others for sale to individuals directly to compete with the
Lagos Executive Development. This system still made the
Traditional Families total top dogs in exercising exclusive
rights with lands they chose to sell and the ones they
chose to keep. This eventually led to the birth of land
speculation in Nigeria because lands were very
expensive to purchase and difficult to obtain. Because of
this and other ancillary reasons, it finally led to the
promulgation of the Land Use Decree on the 28th of
March, 1978 that vested all lands in every state of the
Federation under the control of the State Governors.
People could now directly obtain land from the Governor
and the Governor could allocate land to the individual or
Companies inquiring about land and issue certificate of
occupancy to these people it has allocated land to.

The land use act coupled with other laws made it
possible for the Governor who was now the owner of all
lands in the state to actually have the power to acquire
more lands compulsorily for its own public purpose to
provide Amenities for the greater good of the citizens.

The Acquisition of land from the Family by the Governor
who is now the custodian of all lands in the state was
now empowered by the Land Use Act to take the general
control and management of all URBAN land and any area
designated as an Urban area by the Governor shall be
published in an Official Government Record book known
as the Gazette. Any area, community or village the
Governor designates as an Urban Area is an Acquired
land and the rest of the land it has not Acquired may be
given back to the community it was acquired from in the
form of an Excision.

“An Excision means basically taking
a part from a whole and that part that has been excised
will be recorded and documented in the official
government gazette of that state.” So for example if in
1981, Victoria Island, Ikoyi and Lekki were all part of one
big Community joined together called Oniru and it had
no separation to know which area is called ikoyi, Lekki or
V.I then and it has an approximate total area square
meters estimate of 100,000 square meters and the
Government is interested in that area and decides to
take 70,000 square meters for its self for its own
personal use as an Urban Area or public purpose, it will
record this acquisition in the official government gazette
and also record that the remaining 30,000 square meters
has been left alone for the traditional family to have and
do with it whatever it pleases it to do.

This is the sweet
relationship between a land under acquisition, an
excision and gazette.

A gazette is an official record book where all special
government details are spelt out, detailed and recorded.
A gazette will show the communities or villages that
have been granted excision and the number of acres or
hectares of land that the government has given to them.
It is within those excised acres or hectares that the
traditional family is entitled to sell its lands to the public
and not anything outside those hectares of land given or
excised to them. If they decide to sell anything outside
the excised land, then that land is under acquisition by
the government and it is a very bad land to buy.

Special Features of a Gazette include the following:
The first page of a Gazette must have the following
unless it is a dubious or fake Gazette

a. The Logo of the Country and the inscription of the title
“LAGOS STATE OF NIGERIA OFFICIAL GAZETTE”

b. Underneath it must have the Number, Volume, Page,
Date and the Location it was signed into law e.g. No 26
in pages 200 to 291, Volume 87 dated 14th of August
2011 and have the contents of the list of the Villages,
Settlements and parcels of land excised back to the
community.

The Inner pages will show the following:

a. the description of the Area or Village excised

b. The number of Acres or Hectares of land excised to
the Village

c. Where the boundaries of the beacons start and stop

d. The page the description of the Village excised.

A Gazette is a very powerful instrument the community
owns and can replace a Certificate of Occupancy to
grant title to the Villagers. A community owning a
gazette can only sell lands to an individual within those
lands that have been excised to them and the
community or family head of that land has the right to
sign your documents for you if you purchase lands within
those excised acres or hectares of land. If the
government based on some reasons best known to them
decides to revoke or acquire your land, you will be
entitled to compensation as long as it’s within the
Excised lands given to that community.

The best way to know whether a land is under acquisition
or has an excision that has been covered by a Gazette is
to get a surveyor to chart the site and take it to the
surveyor general’s office to do a land information to
confirm whether it falls within the gazette and spell out
which particular location it can be found.