Evaluating the Methods and Constraints of Land Accessibility in Benin City, Nigeria

Abstract

Access to land remains a challenge in developing countries. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of various methods of accessing land and associated constraints in Benin City, Nigeria. Using a cross-sectional survey design, a total of 236 respondents comprising 210 household heads/owners of properties and 26 heads of practice in estate firms were sampled. Tools such as standard deviation and the relative importance index (RII) as well as factor analysis (FA) were used for data analysis. Results reveal that purchase, community allocation, and gifting are the best ways to gain access to the property in the study area. Key barriers to obtaining property are the high cost of acquisition, the uncertainty of tenure, and the difficulties in completing a land transaction. It is recommended that the city's zoning code is revised, to ensure equitable access to properties. An urgent need to address the problem of the exclusionary indigenous land-ownership syndrome is revealed. This will ameliorate the bottleneck associated with community and family land allocation.