The Political Economy of Urban Land

The Political Economy of Urban Land
Reforms in a Post-Colonial State
AMBE J. NJOH
Introduction
The proclivity towards regulating and controlling the use of urban land is a universal
feature of governments. In less developed countries (LDCs), policies in this connection
are masqueraded in terms of measures designed to achieve the laudable objectives of
social justice and equity, greater political stability, economic growth, environmental
preservation and productivity in the use of land for national development (cf. Handelman,
1996). However, it would appear that the imperative to regulate and control urban land
use constitutes a fundamental part of efforts by the state in LDCs to usurp other forms of
societal authority (Williams, 1992).
From this vantage point, the constellation of land reform policies that have been
adopted throughout sub-Saharan Africa (see, e.g., UN DESA, 1973), especially since the
1960s, can be seen as a manifestation of the continuing struggle over legitimacy and
control between the state and society. While this struggle has been widely discussed
(see, e.g., Ergas, 1987; Rotchild and Chazan, 1988), much remains to be done in the way
of promoting understanding of the development implications of the usurpation by the
state of other forms of societal authority in Africa. The utility of extant works in this
regard is substantially weakened by the absence of empirical data (Williams, 1992) as
well as country-by-country assessments of state-society relationships in specific policy
arenas.
As an attempt to redress this shortcoming in the literature, we herein explore the
nature of ‘reglementation’ — that is, the progressive expansion of rule-bearing authority
by the state or agents acting on its behalf (cf. Williams, 1992) — in the urban land policy
arena and its implications for different members of society in Cameroon. We begin by
retracing the roots of modern urban land use policy in Cameroon (hereafter, the country).
Then, we examine contemporary efforts on the part of the Cameroonian state to regulate
and control urban land use in the face of unprecedented rates of urban population growth
as well as a dwindling resource base. Following this, we uncover real and potential
impacts of the policy on different groups and/or members of the Cameroonian society.
Finally, and prior to concluding the discussion, we recommend a number of actions
necessary for eradicating the extant, as well as averting the potential, problems.
The evolution of modern urban land use policy in Cameroon
Urban land use regulatory and control measures in most developing countries are a legacy
of their colonial past. It is therefore not surprising that the flurry of urban land laws
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promulgated by indigenous leaders in Cameroon following independence in 1960 are
richly laced with the values and planning ideologies of the country’s erstwhile colonial
masters, namely, Germany (1884–1919), Britain (one-fifth of the territory, 1919–60) and
France (four-fifths of the territory, 1919–60). Perhaps nowhere else are these alien
planning values and ideologies more conspicuous than in legislation affecting interest in
urban residential land.
Legislation affecting interest in urban residential land
The pre-colonial era Official legislation affecting interest in land was unheard of prior
to the advent of colonialism in Cameroon. During the pre-colonial era, interest in land
was governed by indigenous customary laws within a purely African traditional system.
Within the framework of this system, the extended family was considered the basic
functional unit endowed with the authority to own land (Njoh, 1994). The powers to
alienate land were, however, vested in the community at large. Based on the rules and
values sanctioned by this wider community, the outright sale of land was forbidden.1
Thus, the relationship of an individual to land under the traditional African system was, as
Mabogunje (1981) notes, no more than that of trustee with rights of beneficial use or
‘usufruct’.
The German era Soon after their arrival and subsequent to signing the protectorate
agreement with local Cameroonian authorities on 12 July 1884, the Germans embarked
vigorously on efforts designed to replace the indigenous land tenure system with a
European one. The first major, and arguably the best known piece of legislation in this
connection is the Act of 15 July 1896 creating German Crown Lands and twenty-six land
commissions corresponding with the territory’s twenty-six administrative districts. The
act ostensibly converted into the property of the German Imperial Government, so-called
‘unoccupied lands’, which included all parcels of land that were neither being cultivated
nor resided upon at the time. The only parcels excluded from this fold were those under
the occupation of chiefs and their communities as part of the German overseas dominions.
The 1896 act was only a minuscule component of a larger and more elaborate scheme
designed to place every piece of Cameroonian land under the exclusive tutelage of the
German colonial state. In fact, prior to the enactment of this act, as Fisiy (1992: 28) notes,
‘the Germans had already contemplated herding indigenous dwellers . . . into reserves’. In
fact, the major functions of the land commissions included demarcating so-called crown
lands and recommending in their respective administrative districts areas deemed suitable
for ‘native reserves’ (Njoh, 1994). Furthermore, Von Puttkamer, then governor of the
colonial state, decided that ‘natives’ be granted use of no more than 1.5 hectares for
residential development purposes. Furthermore, the governor crafted rather detailed plans
to convert dispersed ‘native’ settlements into large consolidated villages with numbered
and surveyed building and agricultural plots.
Ossification of the land conversion schemes was rendered possible by the
introduction of a land register, the Grundbuch, wherein all interests in land were
systematically recorded. Pieces of information deemed important and hence entered in
this document include the specific location, the dimensions, and name and address of the
party or parties with rights to the parcel of land in question.
1 Although the outright sale of land was forbidden within the African traditional land tenure system, there is
albeit limited evidence suggesting that the sale of land pre-dated the advent of colonialism in some parts of
Africa. This is especially true of the coastal areas of West Africa such as Ghana and Nigeria, where as Feder
and Noronha (1987) note, the production of commercial crops such as oil palm had led to the sale of land
before the emergence of colonialism. It must however, be noted that this claim is highly contentious. In fact,
as Feder and Noronha (1987: 154) note, the West African Land Committee (c. 1912) characterized the
evidence presented in support of the foregoing claims as ‘insufficient and inconclusive’.
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The political economy of urban land reforms in a post-colonial state 409
German colonial rule and control over land in Cameroon unofficially ended in 1916.
A year or two previously the territory had already come under British and French control.
Both colonial powers continued from where the Germans left off as far as efforts to
dismantle the traditional land tenure system went. However, it is worth noting that the
powers of these two latter colonial powers were significantly restricted by a provision of
the United Nations trust agreement, which itself resulted from a concern with the possible
development of permanent white settlements on mandate territories. The provision
stipulated that:
In framing laws relating to the holding or transfer of land and natural resources, the
administering authority shall take into consideration native laws and customs, and shall respect
the rights and safeguard the interests, both present and future, of the native population. No
native land or natural resource may be transferred, except between natives, save with previous
consent of the competent authority (quoted in Fisiy, 1992: 30).
The British era In Southern Cameroons — that is, the one-fifth segment of the
Cameroonian territory that was under British control — efforts on the part of colonial
authorities to comply with the above quoted provision took several forms. Most notable in
this regard, was the decision in 1927 to adopt colonial land tenure laws in force in
Northern Nigeria as opposed to those prevalent in Eastern Nigeria, of which Southern
Cameroons was administratively a part. The decision was predicated on the belief that the
laws of Northern Nigeria responded more to the spirit of the UN mandate Agreement than
did those of Eastern Nigeria.
Under the 1927 decision, or what was officially known as the Land and Native Rights
Ordinance, all lands in the British-controlled area of the country — whether occupied or
unoccupied — were declared native lands (Section 3).2 Although this ordinance had the
deceptive appearance of complying with the UN mandate and on the surface seemed to
recognize traditional land tenure systems, it in fact did neither. To be sure, architects of
the ordinance were unconvinced that the ‘natives’ were capable of handling the labyrinths
involved in the development, management and/or transfer of rights in land. Hence, the
paternalistic tone of the ordinance. For instance, Section 4 of the ordinance states as
follows:
All native lands, and all rights over the same are hereby declared to be under the control and
subject to the disposition of the (Governor) Prime Minister, and shall be held and administered
for the use and common benefit of the natives; and no title to the occupation and use of any such
lands shall be valid without the consent of the Prime Minister (quoted in Fisiy, 1992: 31).
Its paternalistic tone aside, it takes very little imagination to appreciate the fact that this
Ordinance was in contravention of the UN trust agreement, which stated without
equivocation that administering authorities must respect indigenous laws and customs in
promulgating legislation affecting land tenure. As stated earlier, pre-colonial laws vested
the right to own, control and transfer rights to land (never through sales) in the extended
family in particular and the community at large. However, under the 1927 Ordinance,
these rights and powers were effectively transferred to the colonial state with the
Governor or Prime Minister directly in charge.
The French era Two parallel systems of law were instituted in the portion of Cameroon
under French imperial control. One system applied to the ‘natives’ or what the French
labelled, les indigenes while the other, tailored along the Napoleonic Code of 1810, was
applicable to local French or western educated elites (les assimile´s). However, as far as
interests in land were concerned, this distinction was non-existent as the French, like the
2 A few, albeit insignificant areas were excluded. In this regard, as many as 84 estates registered under the
German system and subsequently accepted as freehold property by the English in 1922 were exempted.
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410 Ambe J. Njoh
Germans and British, were eager to take complete control and administration of all land.
In this regard, the French moved speedily to experiment with a number of land tenure
systems. The purpose of this experimentation was to determine the system most likely to
guarantee the colonial state firm control over land without alienating the local population
(Fisiy, 1992). Prominent amongst the steps taken along these lines, was the passage of a
law, la legislation d’attente, on 24 July 1921. This law was simply an extension of the law
of 23 July 1855 introducing the transcription system in France.
In 1932, the French colonial authorities introduced a system of land registration under
which unoccupied lands were classified as terres vacantes et sans maıˆtres. This system
was exactly the same as the one earlier adopted by the Germans under the 1896 Decree
converting ‘unoccupied’ lands into Crown property. However, as the appellation
suggests, the French went a step further by classifying so-called unoccupied lands as
ownerless.3 This classification was, to say the least, absurd in the context of indigenous
land tenure systems. These systems, as stated earlier, view all land as belonging to the
community at large.
Overt and covert aims of the colonial land tenure system
We have already suggested that colonial land policies were designed to reinforce the
colonial state’s grip on its colonial holdings. However, there was more behind efforts by
colonial authorities to replace traditional African with European land tenure systems than
meets the eye. For one thing, the Europeans saw Africa as a continent at an inchoate stage
in an inevitable evolutionary process. Within this framework, land tenure was expected to
evolve from the primitive form of tribal and communal ownership to individual
ownership (Sorenson, 1967). Thus, according to the colonial authorities, Africans
occupied a very low rung on the evolutionary ladder, the topmost rung of which was
occupied by Europeans.
For another thing, Europeans were interested, or at least claimed they were, in the
economic development of the colonies. In this connection, individual ownership of land
as attested to by formal ownership certificates and titles as opposed to traditional land
ownership as attested to by informal or customary instruments, was considered an
important propellant of economic growth. The economic justification for promoting
individual and formalized land ownership entitlement systems on the part of colonial
officials is highly questionable. Possible support to this assertion is provided by Feder and
Noronha (1987: 149) when they state that ‘in India individual titles had allegedly led
owners to mortgage and sell their lands to moneylenders, resulting in widespread
indebtedness and landlessness’. To put this in perspective, it must be recalled that the
British colonization of India preceded their colonial adventures in Africa.
Contemporary land legislation
Although securing the support of traditional authorities was a fundamental factor in the
political calculus of indigenous leaders of post-colonial Cameroon, the trend on the part
of the state towards usurping all other forms of societal authority and control over land
persisted through the immediate post-independence era and beyond. In fact, as Njoh
(1992b: 25) notes, post-colonial land laws in Cameroon are ironically ‘bolder and less
tolerant of customary entitlements and rights to land’. Thus, contemporary land laws like
those that prevailed during the colonial era seek not only to place as much land as
possible under the direct ownership and control of the state, but also to replace the
3 To avoid the possibility of political unrest, the French were clever enough not to employ words such as
‘Crown lands’, as did the Germans, in reference to so-called ‘ownerless land’. Rather, they claimed such
land belonged to the entire territory or au territoire.
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The political economy of urban land reforms in a post-colonial state 411
traditional land tenure system with one rooted in a western value system. Support to this
assertion is easily discernible from the constellation of ordinances and amendments
enacted as part of the country’s 1974 land reforms. To all intents and purposes these
reforms were designed to place the state in control of a fundamental factor of production,
namely land. This claim is buttressed by Section 1, Part I of Ordinance No. 74–1 of July
1974, which stated that: ‘The state shall be the guardian of all lands. It may in this
capacity intervene to ensure rational use of land or in the imperative interest of defence or
the economic policies of the nation’.
Therefore, as a direct challenge to alternative sources of societal authority, the
reforms effectively transferred all land and/or land transactions to the state and other
entities acting on its behalf. In this respect, the singular legal testimony for transactions in
land is the land certificate.
The land ownership certification process
The conditions for obtaining a certificate of land ownership in Cameroon were
established by Decree No. 76–165 of 27 April 1976 (Fisiy, 1992; Njoh, 1992b). The
decree allows individuals with either temporary and/or miscellaneous rights over state
and other lands the option to convert such rights into land certificates as long as they can
show that their rights pre-date 5 August 1974. Otherwise, a land certificate is granted to
individuals who have purchased land through formally established channels. The process
for converting miscellaneous deeds into land certificates, which has been described as
cumbersome, tedious, and deliberately slanted in favour of the economically powerful
such as functionaries, bureaucrats and entrepreneurs (DeLancey, 1989; Fisiy, 1992; Njoh,
1992a; 1992b; 1998), comprises four major steps as follows:
· Having the parcel of land demarcated by a sworn surveyor
· Completing an application for land certificate form, which requires inter alia,
information on the applicant, the piece of land in question including property
boundaries, liabilities, valuation report, and so on
· Obtaining an attestation from the Department of Lands testifying that all rents and
dues on the parcel of land in question have been defrayed
· Submitting the completed application dossier to the local Provincial Chief of Service
for Lands, for onward transmission to the Central Lands Office in the national capital,
Yaounde.
The responsibility for issuing the land certificate resides in the hands of the Central Lands
Office, which can only issue the certificate upon verification that the stated rights to the
parcel of land in question are not being challenged or contested.
The steps for converting occupancy or exploitation rights over state land into a land
certificate is also cumbersome and tedious. In this case, the applicant is required to
compile four copies of an application file identical to that described above. These files
must then be submitted to the office of the local Divisional Officer (DO) or sous prefet.
The latter is responsible for verifying the validity of the applicant’s stated rights to the
parcel of land in question. Once the validity of the claim has been established, the sous
prefet is required to publish a summary of the application details at the Divisional Office
and the local town or village halls of the area where the parcel of land is located.
Additionally, the DO is required to schedule a meeting of the Land Consultative Board
(LCB), which must demarcate the parcel of land in question and prepare a report on it.
The DO is further required to transmit a copy of the complete application file, including
the LCB’s report on the property, to the local Divisional Chief of Service for Lands after
30 days. The Divisional Chief of Service for Lands is required to assign the application a
serial number, check its contents, countersign and forward it to the local Provincial Chief
of Service for Lands for endorsement and onward transmission to the Central Lands
Office in Yaounde, which, as stated earlier, is ultimately responsible for decisions
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412 Ambe J. Njoh
regarding land certification matters throughout the country. Such final decisions are
entered in the official land Gazette. Some have observed that this tedious and complex
process takes at least five to seven years to complete (see, e.g., Mabogunje, 1992: 25;
Njoh, 1992a: 27). In fact, as of 1986, that is a decade after the decree was enacted on 27
April 1976, certificates had been issued to only 6% (100,000 out of 1,600,000) of the
active applicants throughout the nation (Fisiy, 1992: 45).
The foregoing numbers raise two obvious questions. The first has to do with the
efficiency and effectiveness of the country’s so-called modern land tenure system, which
calls for the demarcation and registration of freehold title. The second and more important
question within the context of the present discussion has to do with the extent to which
each of the one million six hundred thousand (1,600,000) applicants for land certificates
in the country had an equal chance of being granted a land certificate or being included
amongst the one hundred thousand (or 6% of 1,600,000) who had actually been issued
land certificates as of 1986. We contend that an applicant’s chance of securing formal
title to land in Cameroon is directly proportional to his/her socio-economic and political
power. Thus, only the socio-economically and politically powerful members of the
Cameroonian society are able to take advantage of the enormous benefits associated with
possessing formal claims to land and/or landed property. We pursue this line of argument
in more detail a little later. For the moment, it is necessary to briefly examine the benefits
associated with formal claims to land as attested to by modern instruments such as land
ownership certificates as opposed to traditional claims under communal or other
indigenous African land tenure systems.
Benefits of modern tenure systems: theory and evidence4
Modern land tenure systems have been defended on several grounds. Proponents,
including the World Bank, United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
and policy-makers, amongst others, who have forcefully promoted modernization of the
land tenure systems in developing countries, contend that such systems, particularly when
they involve the consolidation and registration by adjudication of land, can accomplish
the following objectives (Baron, 1978; Tomosugi, 1980; Feeny, 1982; Feder and
Noronha, 1987; Barrows and Roth, 1990):
· Reduce the costs of urban land
· Increase security of tenure
· Facilitate the transferability of land ownership rights
· Enable the use of land as collateral for bank and other loans.
Cost of urban land
Arguably, the high cost of urban land in LDCs is partially a function of fragmented land
ownership patterns resulting from the inheritance clause. The latter is a potent element in
most traditional land tenure systems. In fact, some leading experts in the field (e.g.
Doebele, 1987) contend that a leading problem of urban land markets in less developed
countries has to do with putting to better use the substantial underutilized parcels of land
tied up in different family hands throughout urban areas in these countries. The cost
implication of underutilizing a scarce commodity such as land is obvious. As long as
inherited land, for financial or other reasons, remains undeveloped, the amount of land
available for housing and other urban uses is reduced. In effect, the cost of urban land is
driven upward.
From this vantage point government intervention, either through the introduction of
land use controls and/or the replacement of individual ownership by state ownership of
4 This segment draws largely from Feder and Noronha (1987).
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The political economy of urban land reforms in a post-colonial state 413
land, is defended as a strategy for reducing the cost of land and increasing the supply. The
reality, however, is that land use controls have seldom been effective. This is primarily
because they seek to conform to pseudo-western planning standards, which emphasize
order and the clear delimitation or compartmentalization of land uses. Furthermore, the
claim that land supply is a function of ownership type is not substantiated by empirical
evidence. In fact it would appear that the two variables, supply and ownership style, are
statistically independent. To be sure, land supply problems are as severe in cities such as
Karachi and Delhi, where much of the land is in public hands, as in cities such as
Bangkok, Manila and Seoul where the private ownership of land is commonplace
(Brennan, 1993).
Security of tenure
The formalization of land holding systems through instruments such as land certificates
and land ownership titles has also been promoted as a means of securing land ownership
rights. The lack of security of tenure, it is argued, acts as a disincentive to any potential
land development efforts. Land owners are unlikely to undertake any significant
improvements on land if they are unsure of what may happen to the land in the future.
Therefore, it is arguable that insecurity in land ownership is capable of reducing
productivity (Feder and Noronha, 1987).
The foregoing line of reasoning suggests that traditional tenure systems do not
guarantee security of ownership. Although this is indeed the case, it is worthwhile noting
that the inability of traditional land tenure systems to guarantee security of land
ownership is a function of the fact that the state in developing countries refuses to
recognize traditional claims to land. Essentially, therefore, only claims to land backed by
formal documents such as land ownership certificates issued by the state or agents acting
on its behalf are recognized. In effect, land owners with such documents tend to harbour a
sense of increased security in their property. For instance, a survey of land owners in
Kisii, Kenya revealed that 75% actually believed that registration of their property had
increased security of their tenure (Barrows and Roth, 1990). Given the state’s inherent
positive predisposition towards formal testimonials to land rights, the claims of holders of
land certificates or cognate documents are less likely to be challenged. In fact, in
Machakos, Kenya, 98.4% of the farmers with land certificates reported having
experienced no problems such as land disputes since formally registering their land
(Barrows and Roth, 1990). The implication is that prior to obtaining land certificates, land
disputes were commonplace. Theoretically, the likelihood for land disputes intensifies as
the potential return on investments in land increases (Baron, 1978; Tomosugi, 1980;
Feeny, 1982; Feder and Noronha, 1987). Thus, there is a better chance of land disputes
occurring in urban than in rural areas. It follows, therefore, that the need to register land is
greater in urban than rural areas.
Transferability of land ownership rights
As mentioned earlier, within the context of most indigenous African traditional land
tenure systems, rights to land are obtained either through inheritance and membership of a
kinship group, or through allocation by a community leader such as a chief or
elderperson. Critiques, especially those of the colonial and post-colonial states, contend
that such arrangements act as serious constraints to the land market. This criticism of
traditional land tenure constitutes the basis for policies designed to promote
individualized as opposed to communal land tenure. An intended consequence of
individualized systems of land holding is the commodification of land. In neoclassical
economic terms, an individualized land tenure system invariably leads to the emergence
of a land market. This is because, under an individualized land tenure system, ‘. . . land
will be transferred to those who are able to extract a higher value of product from the land
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414 Ambe J. Njoh
as more productive users bid land away from less productive users’ (Barrows and Roth,
1990: 269).
Thus, land becomes a ‘good’ like any other economic good that can be freely bought
and sold or exchanged on the open market. Such exchange of land or transfer of
ownership right over land would be difficult at best and impossible at worst without a
formalized land ownership entitlement system. Proponents of the ‘individualized property
rights’ paradigm, therefore, consider African traditional land tenure systems problematic
on several counts. In particular, the traditional systems are seen as inefficient in allocating
resources given especially that property rights are nondescript, costs and rewards are not
internalized, and the legality and enforceability of contracts are not guaranteed (Barrows
and Roth, 1990).
Land as collateral for bank and other loans
Secure and documented claims to land assure access to bank and other loans (Feder and
Noronha, 1987). Additionally, such documentation can also serve as collateral for cheaper
and longer-term loans. For instance, in India, while farmers with formal land certificates
pay interest rates of 8–16% on secured loans, lenders charged those without such
documentation of land ownership 18–37% (Feder and Noronha, 1987: 144). Formalized
land entitlement instruments such as land certificates and land ownership titles increase
the demand for capital, especially credit. For instance, in Costa Rica it was revealed that
prior to the introduction of a land titling programme, only 18% of the farmers surveyed
had applied for and received credit from the bank; following the programme’s inception,
as many as 31.7% did so (Seligson, 1982). In a similar fashion, as many as 50% of titled
land holders in Jamaica opted to significantly increase their borrowing (Inter-American
Development Bank, 1986). In fact, commercial banks in LDCs can only extend credit to
individuals without formal employment — in other words, the majority of the population
— when title deeds are used as security or collateral.
Implications for different societal groups
An appreciation of the nature of the state, used here synonymously with the term
government, and the rationale for its actions in the public sphere will go a good way
towards facilitating understanding of the real and potential implications of land reform
programmes for different groups in an erstwhile colonial state such as Cameroon. The
state in such a setting, or any setting for that matter, is a lot more than simply a
descriptive entity. In fact, the state in African countries in general has been characterized
as ‘an actor with interests, capacities, achievements and, of course, frailties’ (Chazan et
al., 1988: 19). The rationale for government actions such as the institution of land reforms
is, to say the least, controversial. To the uncritical eye, such actions are designed to
benefit all members of society or at least, maximize the good of the greater majority
without hurting the minority. However, a more scrupulous examination of the nature, and
the real and potential impact of these actions reveals otherwise. To be sure, it is rather
naive to exalt the role of government as one of an objective, fair-minded arbiter interested
in nothing but the ‘good of all’. Government actions, despite their deceptive appearance,
are by design skewed in favour of the dominant groups or socio-economic elites of
society. Thus, for instance, as Miliband (1969: 79, quoting Meynaud, 1964) states:
all measures taken by the state to develop and improve the national economy always end up by
being of the greatest benefit to those who control the levers of command of the production and
distribution sector . . ..
This statement could well be about the Cameroonian land reforms, which, we
contend, have invariably benefited the privileged members and/or groups in society,
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The political economy of urban land reforms in a post-colonial state 415
including politicians, bureaucratic elites (comprising top members of the military,
gendarmerie and police forces), the educated salariat (including those in government,
parastatal and private employment), entrepreneurs and traditional elites at the expense of
women, the poor, and members of minority ethnic groups. Above all else, the reforms
have benefited the state in, amongst other ways, strengthening its hegemonic grip over
society. In the remainder of this article, we marshal evidence to buttress and substantiate
the foregoing claims.
Implications of the reforms for the state
As we have already hinted, actions such as the promulgation of land reform laws on the
part of the state in Cameroon cannot be seen simply as measures designed to promote
public interest. Rather, we contend that such actions are designed primarily to promote
the state’s own interest and serve as an instrument of class control. The state’s interest in
land reforms can be discussed at three levels, namely, political, economic and
ideological.
Political
A major concern of the state, especially in a developing country such as Cameroon, is
political stability. By declaring itself custodian of all lands in the country through, for
example, Ordinance No. 74–1 of 6 July 1974 (or Law No. 73–3 of 9 July 1973 and
Statutory Law No. 63–2 of 1963 before it), the state is able to sanction actions relating to
transactions in land that are capable of neutralizing real and potential threats to political
stability from interest groups in society. Arguably, the most serious threat to political
stability in the country is from bureaucratic and business elites. Cognizant of this, the
political leadership has, amongst other things, crafted the land reform laws to
disproportionately favour bureaucratic elites and the few financially well-off individuals
as a means of appeasing them and ultimately gaining their political support. The
prerequisites for land ownership certification, such as having the parcel of land
demarcated by a professional surveyor and defraying the necessary fees (see above), are
such that only the few economically powerful members of society can fulfil them.
Perhaps more noteworthy is the fact that the land reform laws were written in a manner
that renders their use as a source of political patronage by the leadership possible. As
DeLancey (1989: 62) has observed with respect to the 1974 Land Decree:
Among the various paragraphs and conditions of the law, there was the possibility of obtaining a
temporary grant of title to land that was ‘unoccupied or unexploited’. . . . The law stated, in
essence, that if an individual could present a plan to develop and utilize such land and if he or
she had the funds to undertake such exploitation, that person could gain temporary title of the
land. Small grants of land were given by the minister of lands, larger grants by the president.
Such could be considered rewards in many cases — another source of patronage.
As stated earlier, a notable feature of the land reforms discussed here is that they
concentrate the power to control all transactions in land in the centre specifically in the
hands of the Head of State. According to the 1974 Land Decree, ‘only the Head of State
can establish the rules governing the ownership and alienation of land throughout the
country’ (Njoh, 1992b: 25). From the state’s point of view, concentrating or centralizing
the power to control land is a strategy capable not only of reinforcing the executive’s
power but also of ensuring national stability (Njoh, 1992a).
Economic
Cameroon’s modern land management system requires that all transactions in land be
granted official authorization. Furthermore, unless such transactions, including all land
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416 Ambe J. Njoh
transfers through sales and other means, are duly registered with the relevant state
institutional bodies, they will be considered null and void for official purposes. This point
is made more explicitly in Part II Article 4 of Ordinance No. 74–1 of 6 July 1974 and as
amended by Section (1) of Ordinance No. 77–1 of 10 January 1977 thus:
The holders of land register books or certificates of occupancy relating to land in urban areas
shall be bound, under penalty of forfeiting their rights, to convert the said books or certificates
into land certificates within a period of ten years from 5 August 1974, the date of publication of
Ordinance No. 1 of 6 July 1974; the said time limit shall be extended to 15 years for land in
rural areas (Republic of Cameroon, n.d.: 84).
One obvious implication of this for the state is that its ability to keep track of all
transactions in land is significantly enhanced. The importance of this effect of the reform
policy cannot be exaggerated. Land, as a fundamental factor of production, constitutes a
potent source of government revenue. Thus, to have complete and accurate information
on the country’s land inventory and all transactions therein is to maximize the utility of
this crucial revenue source. To be sure, the direct economic benefit to the state with
respect to land is not limited to the fees it derives from transactions in land, but includes
taxes it charges on land and landed property, business taxes paid by entities such as
professional surveys and/or cadastral firms, dealers in land survey and mapping
equipment, and so on. Additionally, and perhaps most important of all, the state derives
revenue from the direct sales of state-owned lands.
Ideological
Ideology has been a chief motivating factor in the state’s effort to reform the country’s
land tenure system. To be sure, the effort is largely in response to ideological instructions
and propaganda campaigns by western-based institutions such as the World Bank and the
United Nations Development Program (UNDP), rather than to a real or perceived need. In
fact, the state, in collaboration with such institutions and building on the foundation
established by colonial officials, has worked fervently to ensure a complete monetization
of the country’s economy. In this connection, one of the principal aims of the reforms has
been the conversion of a previously traditional factor of production, namely land, into a
commodity which can be exchanged on the ‘free market’. Thus, the reforms have sought
to individualize the ownership and control of land, thereby eliminating all claims that may
be rooted in kinship or community. Therefore, it is safe to conclude that the reforms
constitute an ideological buttress designed to perpetuate the historical legacy which links
private property to the private ownership of the means of production characteristic of
capitalism (Burgess, 1985; Njoh, 1992a).
According to Ordinance No. 74–1 of 6 July 1974, the state may, in its capacity as
guardian of the country’s land, intervene in the land market ‘. . . to ensure rational use of
land or in the imperative interest of defence or the economic policies of the nation’. This
stated objective of the state’s activities in the land market has ideological overtones. It
serves as a sign of the state’s concern for the general welfare of the citizenry.
Implications for politicians, bureaucratic and business elites
As noted above, Cameroon’s land reform laws are deliberately slanted in favour of the
few economically powerful members of society. This group includes politicians,
bureaucratic and business elites, or what Kofele-Kale (1987) has called the national
bourgeoisie. As Kofele-Kale accurately observes, the national bourgeoisie in Cameroon
cuts across the country’s traditional cleavages, particularly the infamous francophone/
anglophone divide, and constitutes the albeit small segment of the population which
enjoys most of the country’s wealth and prestige. For instance, while the bureaucratic
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The political economy of urban land reforms in a post-colonial state 417
elites comprise only a little more than 2% of all the actively employed population, they
consume as much as one-third of the national revenue compared to 40% of the national
income, which is shared by more than 89% of the labour force (Kofele-Kale, 1987: 156).
Thus, while the bureaucratic and business elites are able to easily defray the high costs
associated with purchasing and securing official titles to land, most of the other members
of the population are not. In effect, the bureaucratic and business elites are those best
positioned to derive the benefits associated with possessing official documents attesting
to one’s entitlements to land.
As a class, the bureaucratic elites have benefited from the fruits of the country’s land
reform policies in other ways. As Fisiy (1992) notes, they have been able to masterfully
manipulate the policies for personal gains. In this regard, and particularly with respect to
the 1974 reforms, he observes that:
. . . it has become common practice to acquire land in the name of the State and, in turn, convert
the same into private estates . . . Since the law provides for the State to own land like any other
private citizen, known as ‘le domaine prive´ de l’e´tat’, public servants then use State power for
their own private motives (Fisiy, 1992: 168).
The bureaucratic and business elites have further been able to take advantage of the
land reforms by indulging in land speculation. According to Decree No. 76–165 of 27
April 1976, owners of land in urban areas had until 1984 to register their titles or risk
forfeiture of their land rights. With the almost insurmountable difficulties faced by most
individuals trying to register land in the country, the bureaucratic and business elite
quickly moved to purchasing land at below market rates, using their connection and/or
financial resources to register the land and then turning around and reselling at exorbitant
rates (Fisiy, 1992).
It is therefore no accident that most of the land thus far registered in the country has
been by state and business elites. This group accounted for almost 83% or 1244 of the
1502 land titles registered in the North West Province during the first decade (1976–85)
following the passage of the law (Fisiy, 1992: 153). In the South West Province, the
proportion of land titles registered by members of this group alone was higher, at nearly
87% or 691 of the 795 titles registered during the same period (ibid.).
Although Fisiy (1992) rightly points out that the data set from which the above
percentages were computed has some limitations, especially because it lumps business
people with capital in the hundreds of thousands (CFA francs) together with those whose
capital may be in the millions, there is hardly any reason to believe that petty business
people constitute a significant segment of those acquiring formal titles to land. For one
thing, petty business people are typically illiterate and, almost by definition, function in
the informal sector, hence are unlikely to have access to information articulating the
importance of formal land entitlements (see below). For another thing, they are unlikely
to have the connection and/or financial resources necessary for surmounting the hurdles
associated with acquiring formal titles to land.
Implications for the educated salariat
Although the official income of members of this group — including mid- and low-level
employees of the state, parastatal and private sectors — is relatively modest, they are
amongst those who have benefited, and are likely to continue benefiting, substantially
from the land reforms. The privileged access of this group to the fruits of the reforms, by
design or otherwise, is guaranteed through a number of channels including, but not
limited to, their: (a) official position; (b) connection to, and contacts with, the arteries of
power; and (c) knowledge of the law.
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418 Ambe J. Njoh
Official position
Some of the educated salariat working in public, para-public or private sector agencies,
such as the local services of Lands, Surveys, Town Planning and Housing, local
government councils, the Cameroon Housing Authority (or Societe´ Immobilier du
Cameroun —SIC) and so on, are directly involved in implementing the land reform laws.
In the jargon of administrative sciences, these individuals are called street level
bureaucrats. Street level bureaucrats, especially the calibre of interest in the context of
this discussion, have three main characteristics (Palumbo and Maynard-Moody, 1991).
First, they are usually located at or near the bottom of the bureaucratic ladder. Second,
they are always in direct contact with the public, especially the segment of the public
constituting the direct beneficiaries of the policy they are responsible for implementing.
Finally, they possess and exercise significant discretionary authority with respect to the
policies or laws they are charged with implementing. Thus, for instance, although field
staff such as technicians of the agencies mentioned above were not involved in crafting
the reforms, they are able to literally rewrite the laws in their own favour in the course of
implementation.
An example would serve to illuminate this point. Provisions of the land reforms law
grant the state authority to own land in the same manner as private citizens through what
is known as ‘le domaine prive´ de l’e´tat’ (see above). Street level bureaucrats habitually
manipulate this provision to serve their own private ends. In one case—that of Kumbo in
Bui Division, North West Province — reported by Fisiy (1992), officials of the relevant
local agencies, in collaboration with the mayor, designated part of the state’s private
estate as a local government or council layout scheme and then moved to put it to their
own private use. This feat was accomplished simply by restricting access to plots in the
layout, which were, by the way, sold for a token sum to individuals with a regular source
of income. Additionally, applicants for plots at the layout were required to complete
special lengthy application forms obtainable exclusively from the local Lands office,
where they were often told the forms were out of stock, or from the central Lands Service
in the national capital, Yaounde. These two requirements meant that only the few local
civil servants or formal sector employees, who have a regular source of income and were
able to make the contacts necessary for obtaining the special application forms, could
secure the very inexpensive plots. Thus, although projects such as ‘new layouts’ are often
masqueraded as a means of dealing with the problem of inner-city congestion, it is
actually a strategy carefully designed by street level bureaucrats and other local officials
to convert state estate for their own private benefits. It is therefore not surprising that civil
servants and other formal sector employees, despite their relatively modest incomes,
constitute, as revealed by Fisiy (1992), a significant segment of urban land owners in the
country.5
Implications for women, ethnic minorities and the poor
Women, ethnic minorities and the poor in Cameroon share several characteristics,
especially within the context of the present discussion. First, members of these groups are
conspicuously underrepresented in the formal sector of the economy. Second, and as a
result of this, they do not have a regular source of income. Finally, they are in large part
formally uneducated.
5 High salaries in the country are, as stated earlier, enjoyed exclusively by the bureaucratic elites. In fact, it
has been noted that the range of salaries between the highest paid labourer and the highest paid civil servant
is in the order of 1:30 (Kofele-Kale, 1987).
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The political economy of urban land reforms in a post-colonial state 419
Women
Theoretically, the land reform laws that have been enacted in Cameroon prior to and
following independence in 1960, are supposed to facilitate the access of women to land.
Proponents contend that customary land tenure systems, which: (a) recognized the family,
and ultimately the community, as the landholding unit in society; (b) did not authorize the
sale and/or exchange of land; and (c) permitted only male offspring to inherit land and
landed property, effectively denied females access to land.6 By rendering the exchange
and/or outright sale of land possible, the land reform laws were therefore supposed to
guarantee women access to land. To be sure, this has not been the case. In fact, if
anything, the laws have significantly contributed to further alienating women from land
and landed property. It does not require a lot of imagination to figure out how this has
been the case.
Women constitute more than 51% of the country’s population but account for only
33% of its formal labour force. What this means is that most Cameroonian women lack a
source of ‘regular and verifiable’ income. One implication of this for access to land is that
women are less likely, if not unlikely, to take advantage of low-cost government land
sales programmes requiring potential buyers to present collateral and/or proof of regular
income. Thus, it is hardly surprising that since the 1974 landmark Land Reform
Legislation was promulgated, only very few women have actually registered any land
titles in their names. As a respectable World Bank report has noted (1995: 38):
Only 3.2 percent of all land titles issued in the Northwest Province were given to women; in the
Southwest Province the figure was 7.2 percent. For the country as a whole, it is estimated that
women obtained under 10 percent of all land certificates.
Furthermore, only a small percentage of Cameroonian women can read and write. In
fact, while approximately 67% of all males in the country can read and write, only 45% of
the females are able to do so. The implication of this for the purpose of the present
discussion is that only a few Cameroonian women have been able to acquaint themselves
with the procedures governing the registration of land ownership titles. Conversely, most
are therefore neither conversant with the complex procedures nor the merits of
participating in such a process.
Ethnic minorities and the poor
As disenfranchised members of the society, ethnic minorities and the poor in Cameroon
are almost completely disconnected from the levers of power. Yet, it is hardly any secret
that one’s ability to succeed in a developing country such as Cameroon is almost always a
function of one’s connection to the levers of command. As stated earlier, land has been
employed by high level politicians as a source of political patronage or as rewards for
political support. In this case, ethnic minorities and the poor emerge as losers. Politicians
see no risk in ignoring pockets of ethnic minorities, who, by definition, constitute a small
segment of the population. Similarly, they perceive no risk in ignoring the poor, who,
while numerically substantial, are unorganized, thereby constituting no significant
political threat.
Furthermore, and as in the case of women, the poor and ethnic minorities are likely to
have no formal education and therefore cannot read and write. Thus, they are also very
unlikely to be versed with the intricacies of the land ownership title registration as well as
the benefits associated with obtaining a certificate of land ownership. This problem is
compounded by the fact that most members of these groups are likely to be engaged in the
6 Although in most areas of Cameroon, only men could inherit land, it is misleading to hold, as most
proponents of land reforms contend, that under the traditional land tenure system, women were completely
denied access to land. Njoh (1998: 14) makes this argument more succinctly when he states that ‘. . . in the
absence of a husband, a woman’s access to land was guaranteed through her male offspring or where there
was no male, a woman could gain access through her father’.
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420 Ambe J. Njoh
informal sector of the economy, where earnings are irregular. Yet, as we have already
observed, a regular source of income is a condition sine qua non for securing the very
inexpensive parcels of state-owned land that go on sale from time to time throughout the
country.
Recommendations
The tenor of this segment is cautiously prescriptive. The need to be cautious in dealing
with social and politico-economic quandaries of the genre identified in this paper is selfevident.
Unlike puzzles in, say, the physical or natural sciences, the questions raised to
prominence here have no categorical, solitary or easily identifiable answers. The task of
resolving riddles of the latter ilk is further compounded by what we would term a
‘transferability problem’ —that is, the difficulties inherent in transplanting solutions and/
or remedies for social and consanguine problematics from one geographic location to
another; or from one time period to another. With this peculiar nature of social problems
in mind, we proffer the following set of activities as a contribution to efforts designed to
enhance the outcomes of land tenure reform policies in Cameroon.
First, concerned authorities should seek to simplify the land title registration process.
Presently, as noted above, not only is the process tedious, it is also cumbersome and timeconsuming.
Simplification can include amongst other measures: (1) administratively
decentralizing the process; and (2) reducing significantly the number of institutional
actors involved. If the central government has anything to lose through decentralization, it
is certainly not its ability to keep abreast with land transactions and/or land inventory.
One reason for this is the increasing sophistication of the computer and other electronic
land data storage and retrieval systems that are no longer prohibitively costly for
governments of penurious developing countries such as Cameroon. However, it must be
noted that decentralization efforts are unlikely to yield any significant positive results
unless they are matched with a resolve to empower and strengthen the institutional
capacity of local governmental and non-governmental bodies.
Second, authorities must strive to eliminate ‘formal sector employment’ or ‘source of
regular income’ as a condition for securing access to state-owned land. To take this step is
to recognize one of the country’s most glaring economic realities, namely the
predominance of the informal sector. As noted above, the practice of tying access to
state-owned land to formal sector employment or source of regular income has been
exceedingly effective in denying the less privileged members of Cameroonian society
access to state-owned, hence subsidized land.
Third, authorities will also do well to start ‘small’ with, for instance, a ‘half way
cadastre’ system. The objectives of such a system, which by design is simple and
straightforward, are threefold (Mabogunje, 1992: 27): (1) achieving a complete coverage
of a municipality’s land inventory; (2) establishing land entitlements through land
registration; and (3) strengthening the state’s land management capabilities while
ensuring its ability to continuously improve such capabilities. The attainment of these
objectives may require no more than the initiation of minor bureaucratic reorganization
schemes, the introduction of inexpensive technology such as easy-to-use computer
programmes (e.g. simple spreadsheets), photogrametric equipment, simple survey
techniques and hands-on training and retraining of relevant staff. Additionally, such a
strategy may necessitate educating the citizenry, whose cooperation and participation are
necessary for effective institution building. Such a simple land survey strategy holds far
more promise than the tedious techniques, which seek to attain optimal accuracy at the
cost of frustrating potential land developers.
Finally, it is important to recognize the limits of modern land tenure systems. As
attested to by the preceding arguments, we consider efforts to hastily replace the
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The political economy of urban land reforms in a post-colonial state 421
traditional with modern or, more appropriately, western-based land tenure systems to be a
fundamental source of the problem of socio-economic inequities prevalent in Cameroon.
To be sure, the market mechanism, entrusted with the function of land distribution within
the framework of western-based land tenure systems, is amongst the leading factors
accounting for such inequalities. As a means of diminishing these inequalities, authorities
should seek to actively preserve traditional land holding arrangements. One way of
effectuating this strategy is to discourage the outright sale of family or communal land
unless where it is absolutely necessary. In such cases the parties involved must present
specific investment plans containing elements such as employment generation that will be
of direct benefit to those likely to part company with their usufruct rights (cf. World
Bank, 1995). What this means is that family, communal and other group-held parcels of
land must be governed by traditional land tenure and/or customary laws as opposed to the
national or modern land tenure system.
Summary and conclusion
Some of the salient points of this paper warrant reiteration. First, we note that indigenous
authorities and their colonial predecessors in Cameroon have always been preoccupied
with efforts to nationalize land and formalize the land ownership process. Prominent
amongst the rationales for this preoccupation is the need on the part of the state to fortify
its hegemonic grip on society at large. Also underlying this preoccupation is a belief that
traditional land tenure systems constrain the functioning of the country’s land market.
Therefore, concentrating land in the hands of the state and replacing the traditional with
a modern land tenure system, it is believed, will result in a more functional land market.
Unfortunately, this has not been the case. Rather, the preoccupation has given birth to a
ubiquitous role for the state and its various institutions; a mammoth bureaucratic system;
inadequate institutional frameworks; and a glut of intemperate regulations in the land
policy field. Second, we observe that recent land law reforms in particular and land
tenure modernization efforts in general in the country have always been skewed in
favour of the few economically and/or politically well-entrenched members of society.
Finally, we note that rather than facilitating, the modern land tenure system has
effectively impeded access by women, the poor and ethnic minorities to urban land.
Thus, it is safe to conclude that modern land law reforms have accentuated socioeconomic
inequities in the country.
If modern land tenure systems have failed to facilitate the functioning of the land
market in Cameroon as advertised by proponents, it is not because the systems in and of
themselves are dysfunctional. Rather, it is because hardly any efforts have been made to
institutionalize the system as well as strengthen the institutional capacity for
implementing the reforms. Authorities will therefore do well to create some fit between
the ‘modern’ land tenure system and the traditions, culture and beliefs of the
Cameroonian society. Furthermore, and above all, serious efforts should be made to
redistribute wealth as well as revamp the country’s bureaucratic machinery, particularly
the institutional framework for land policy administration.
Ambe J. Njoh (njoh@stpt.usf.edu), Public Administration Program, University of South
Florida, 140 Seventh Avenue South, DAV 258, St Petersburg, Florida 33701-5016, USA.
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