Designing a Technical Solution for Managing Land Tenure Data in a Customary Setting
Creators: name: Egbulefu, Irene Folashade
Publisher: name: Graduate Studies
Year: 2015
Subjects: subject: Information Science
subject: Literature--African
subject: Computer Science
subject: Land Tenure Information System Design
subject: Customary Land Tenure System

description: This study addresses the question: “In an evolving customary land tenure setting, how can a web-based land tenure information system that is equipped with a flexible database structure be designed to record customary land tenure information that complements existing tenure evidence so that land tenure security is improved for the local people?” This was done by investigating the changing current land tenure practices in the Akabor customary setting in southern Nigeria, predicting future scenarios for land tenure practices based on the socio-economic and political changes that are occurring in the community which are leading to a high rate of land disputes, and identifying suggestions for improvement. To achieve this goal, an existing TalkingTitler land tenure information system (TTLTIS) was adapted to suit the needs of the Akabor community. In customary settings, land ownership and transactions relating to land are governed by customary tenure rules based on the traditions and norms of the local people. Also associated with customary settings are complex social relationships that exist among people and between people and their lands. However, in most customary settings, there are usually no manual paper records or digital documents of the existing oral testimonies of land tenure (such as deeds, title, survey information, and written agreements) for proving interests in land. In the case of the Akabor customary setting, land tenure evidence is currently based on the oral testimony of land owners and their witnesses alone. Furthermore, land tenure practices in Akabor are constantly changing due to both external and internal factors. In turn, these changes have resulted in a high rate of disputes over land ownership, which are difficult to resolve because of the lack of adequate or easily-accessible concrete evidence. While conventional Land Information Systems (LIS) are used to manage formal land tenure in cities, they are not able to effectively manage or capture land tenure information in customary settings. This is because conventional LIS are not designed to model the complex social relationships that exist between people and their lands in a customary tenure setting, nor are they able to handle the rapid socio-economic changes that frequently occur in these settings. As a result, various open source land tenure information system applications are being developed to improve land tenure security in these areas. To achieve the objectives of this study, the researcher conducted a field study in a rural customary community called Akabor town, in the southern region of Nigeria, West Africa. Based on the user needs analysis developed from the field work, a web-based TalkingTitler Land Tenure Information software (TTLTIS) was designed and developed with two interfaces (backend and front user interface) by building on the existing TTLTIS software model, which had been developed in the Land Tenure and Cadastral Systems research group at the University of Calgary, Canada. To adapt the existing system, the backend object relational database was upgraded from PostgreSQL 8.4 to PostgreSQL 9.2 with PostGIS spatial extension; new database tables were created to supplement the existing ones; new front-end interface forms were designed and created to capture the Akabor community customary land tenure data; and finally, a map interface was integrated into the revised system to enable a spatial visualization of land parcels and features on the land, as well as to capture the geometric coordinates. Moreover, the new web-based TTLIS that was designed and developed in this project retained and leveraged the functionality developed in the previous version whereby the system is able to capture and store various forms of data such as structured (i.e., textual data) and unstructured data types (i.e., video, audio, photographs and scanned images). This retained functionality allows complex social relationships in the Akabor customary setting to be captured and manipulated within the system, thus reducing conflicts over land. This study contributes to land tenure information system design theory in a customary land tenure administration setting by confirming that using a flexible database structure for the TalkingTitler system is appropriate for managing complex customary land tenure data. The new web-based TalkingTitler system with a flexible database structure will help improve land tenure security and mitigate conflicts and other challenges to land tenure that vulnerable and poor members of customary communities increasingly face in securing their land (especially inherited lands) due to the lack of formal procedures or cadastral technology in these rural areas. This was achieved by identifying the information systems needs of the Akabor customary community in Nigeria and designing a flexible database structure to suit their identified needs. The system is also able to capture and represent the complex social relationships that exist between the people of Akabor community and the land. Thus, legitimate landowners can use the documentation and other information the system generates to augment their traditional evidence of interest or rights in land. If this web-based TalkingTitler application is implemented in any generic customary land tenure setting, it will provide a system that can store and generate documented tenure evidence for landowners in these settings to support their interests in lands. Moreover, it will provide a computerized tool that can help reduce the problem of land tenure insecurity in the Akabor community.