If you are buying land or property in Nigeria, understanding land titles is not an option. It is the difference between a secure investment and a costly legal nightmare. In property conversations, terms like Certificate of Occupancy, Excision and Gazette are often thrown around as if they are one and the same but they all have unique legal meanings and understanding how they relate to one another can save the buyer from buying a property that is still under the control of the government or has ownership issues.
The Legal Starting Point
Technically, all land in a state is vested in the Governor under the Land Use Act of 1978, who holds it in trust for the people. That’s why almost every land title in Nigeria is traceable to government approval in one way or the other. Before this Act, the proof of ownership was the Deed of Conveyance; now the Certificate of Occupancy and related documents have largely taken up this role.
Certificate of Occupancy (C of O)
A Certificate of Occupancy is a document issued by a state government that gives a person, group or entity the legal right to occupy and use a particular piece of land for a period of not more than 99 years, renewable. What a C of O actually gives you is the right to occupy and use the land, not the outright ownership that freehold confers elsewhere. It is given once and only once, to the first person who obtains it on a particular piece of land. Every other purchaser of that land needs a separate document, known as Governor’s Consent, to formalize his purchase.
A valid C of O protects the holders in law against competing claims and can be used as collateral for bank loans – a big plus over other title types. However, a C of O alone does not confer title automatically; there needs to be a valid underlying right to land in the first place, hence the usual role of excision and gazetting.
Excision
Excision is a legal process by which a state Governor returns a parcel of land, previously acquired by the government, to the original owners (communities or families) of the land for residential or commercial use. It is, in fact, a formal declaration of the restoration of rights usurped by government acquisition. This is important because decades ago, much of the land around cities like Lagos was acquired by government compulsorily – and land that was not technically excised remains under that acquisition and can be reclaimed or is ineligible for a valid C of O.
Gazette
When land is excised, this is formally recorded in a Gazette, an official book of government record, stating the community or family to whom the land was returned and the exact acreage concerned. This gazetting process normally takes the excision paperwork to the Surveyor General’s office. The Gazette is important in that it is documentary evidence that the excision actually occurred. Without a Gazette, claims to excised land may be difficult to prove or defend. Properly excised and gazetted land is eligible for a Certificate of Occupancy or Governor’s Consent.
Why the Sequence Counts
In practice, the general order of progression is Government acquisition → Excision → Gazette → Certificate of Occupancy or Governor’s Consent. At every stage, buyers should always demand documentary proof from sellers – especially the gazette page and any excision approval – and verify the records directly at the relevant state land registry or Surveyor General’s office before parting with money. This is because the failure to do this check is one of the most common reasons for land disputes in Nigeria.