Land Tenure System in Igboland

In comparing briefly land tenure among the Igbo with other African groups, discussing the significance of land among the Igbo, delineating their traditional land tenure system, methods of land acquisition or patterns of holding, the paper goes further to show some of the major changes in the traditional land tenure system and the factors responsible for the changes. It also dwells to some extent on problems or effects of Igbo land tenure on development It shows that traditionally land belonged to specified groups in the community who had the right of use with no power of alienation. Traditionally land was the property of the living and the dead and the idea of disposing of it was a sacrilege. Even then portions of land had always been owned collectively and individually. Individuals always could transfer their rights to land to others under specified and accepted native system such as land pledging, land gift, land borrowing, leasehold, and kola tenancy. As a result of intensive contact with European powers, introduction of money economy, indigenous technological innovation, and demographic factors, major changes have occurred in Igbo traditional land tenure system. There is open alienation of land, land fragmentation, and the transformation of communal ownership to individual and private holding. Women now have rights in land even though the patrilineal inheritance system, that is, the norm prohibiting women from inheriting in their parental home is still operative. Among the Igbo land is intricately connected with the social structure and questions relating to land tenure are inevitably tied up with future political and economic development. The social well-being of people on land is closely related to their rights to the soil. Many a time there is real and imaginary interference to these rights. The result is that land dispute constitutes a very serious problem to development. Conditions that affect efficiency in production in a given system may influence not only the way in which land is used but the qualities of labour and capital used to form a productive unit.