ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with state government land allocation and provides a revealing case study of bureaucratic policy making through the implementation process. The 1978 Land Use Decree "empowers the local land allocation committees to expropriate almost any land within their areas of control and to allocate it for either public or private use". The allocation of statutory titles in Nigeria is regulated by federal laws and controlled by state administrative actions. There are a number of ways in which land-allocation practices in Kano and Bauchi states have effectively denied the poor access to statutory rights of occupancy. The impact of the 1978 Land Use Decree on the implementation of allocation policy can be assessed by comparing the attributes of those granted access to the process in pre-and post-Decree intervals. The overall objective is to identify any policy-implementation biases that operate after one has been granted admission to the land-allocation process.
