CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
There is bound to be conflict over land use. The demands for arable land, grazing, forestry, wildlife, tourism and property development are greater than the land resources available (Ratcliff, 1999). In the developing countries including Nigeria, these demands become more pressing every year. The population dependent on the land for food, fuel and employment will double within the next 25 to 50 years. Even where land is still plentiful, many people may have inadequate access to land or to the benefits from its use especially for property development. Land must change to meet new demands yet change brings new conflicts between competing uses of the land and between the interests of individual land users and the common good.
Land is a private property, its ownership and use is protected by the constitution (Farmer and Gibb, 1979). It is the free gift of nature to mankind. Every activity of man as of necessity takes place on land and as a result of increased activities there arose conflicts in different land uses. One land use tends to succeed another, where this is no control of such succession and use. Ratcliff (1999) states that succession of land use for its own sake is hardly desirable and change in advance of the appropriate time will only contribute to the inefficiency of the urban structure. He also argued that there are times when succession appear to lag behind the needs of the community, when actually, the fundamental factors that call for a readjustment of land uses are not present. Thus, the need for spatial ordering of land use with a view to creating functionally efficient and aesthetically pleasing environment for living, circulation and recreation, becomes imperative.
The creation of a balanced land use system (urban equilibrium), that is, the provision of adequate land for the various land uses, consistent with the creation of functionally efficient physical environment, is the objective of the land use allocation. Land use allocation is to ensure the best utilization of land in the national interest, and to prevent individual land owners from using that land to the detriment of body politic (Lawal, 2000). There has been several concern in the recent times as to the procedure involves in the allocation of land for property development. It ranges from the high cost to the fraudulent activities attached to land for property development.