Land Ownership System In Igbo Land, By Anayo Nwosu

By Anayo Nwosu

TYPES AND DESCRIPTION
Ownership of any land in Igbo towns can be divided into 4 namely:

1) Ana Onwe : Personal land acquired
 by the holder using has personal funds. The owner can sell this land without consultation with any family member.

Any one considered wealthy in terms of large quantity of land he possesses is called Ezeani. Example is Ezeana Metuh of Umuanuka Otolo Nnewi, the grandfather of Chief Olisa Metuh. He had the title Ezeani Nnewi.
 
2) Anaobi : This is/are land received by the holder from his father. A father could share his land as he likes amongst his male children depending on his rating of their affection and endowment.

A father could disinherit his first son and give any of his other sons the headship of his family including the land on which his Obi is built.
This, he must say before an assembly of his Umunna or Amaala (i.e. kinsmen).

An efulefu or a prodigal son is given a land at the middle, surrounded by other son's portions to make it difficult for him to dispose the land to pursue his profanities.

Anybody can sell his Anaobi.

3) Ana Oha : This is a communal land co-owned by members of an extended family or community.
This land is held in trust for members by the Obi or the head of the clan and council of elders.
Members are allotted farming portion on request and the land reverts to the pool after harvest.

This land can be shared.

Ana Oha usually located far from home settlements is shared family by family. Each family upon receipt of its share shall divide same along matrilineal groupings whereby sons born of the same mother are group into one block. Individuals would get their shares from the first son of their mothers.

4) Ana Ibe: Someone who needs money and wants to borrow can pledge a piece of land as a collateral securing the loan. People borrow to marry, start trade, to finance burial ceremonies or to send children to school.

The lender shall assume the ownership of the land if the borrower fails to repay at the agreed time.

The children of the borrower can always redeem the pledged land IF AND ONLY the loan was not used to marry their mother.

A wicked lender or his children may request a refund of the benefit of the loan which includes the children of the borrower.

PERFECTION OF IGBO LAND TITLE

FOR OUTRIGHT PURCHASE
Acquisition of a land via purchase is deemed incomplete and subject to redemption unless the buyer does the following:

1. Make complete payment.

2. Kills a goat and the blood sprinkled on the purchased land and the buyer is given the lap of the goat while the seller and witnesses share the remainder.
When a goat is killed on a land the sale is reversible.
Presentation of goat or money equivalent is sufficient.

3. The buyer must bring a keg of palm wine drank during the dismemberment of the goat.

Any family member is expected to kill a goat to seal the transfer of ownership conferred through "idu obi" i.e. "act of allotting an inherited land" either from a father or from the community.

When a goat is killed as a seal to a land transaction, not  even the father can reverse his allotment. Any delay in presenting or killing a goat after buying a land or "idu obi" is be
very risky.

Nonprescription of goat to seal a land transaction makes the deal reversible and payment refundable.

Nowadays, land buyers monetize the goat and drinks after paying for the purchase price of the land.

You can also give ur father cash for the goat and drinks to make the allotment irreversible.

Note that the receiver of the goat is the giver or the seller the land.

And there must be a witness to a land transaction who shall be prepared to swear an oath that the transaction took place. That's why the witness collects a chunk of goat killed or its monetary equivalent.