The immense potential of blockchain technology in addressing land administration as well as its application in business and investment were subjects of discussion on Friday, June 9, 2023, at a roundtable tagged “Roundtable Talk on Blockchain Technology on Land Governance in Nigeria and Malaysia.”
Organized by the Department of Private and Property Law, University of Lagos, the blended event held at the Faculty of Law boardroom was in collaboration with the University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom.
In his welcome remarks, Dean of the Faculty, Professor Ige Bolodeoku disclosed that the discussion on blockchain technology will provide opportunities for research members from both institutions to present their works and the impacts to the gathering.
While welcoming participants, the Head of Department, Private and Property Law, Professor Babatunde Oni underscored the importance of the roundtable. He averred that blockchain technology is a revolutionary innovation with the potential to transform various industries.
The Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Development Services), Professor Ayodele Atsenuwa, described the roundtable discussion as timely, noting that exploring the feasibility of blockchain technology is crucial in the documentation of land tenure.
According to Prof. Atsenuwa who is the immediate past Dean of Law, “..the idea of blockchain technology for land administration is long overdue and it is being actualized within land registry projects globally to further the efficiency of land registries.
In his presentation, the keynote Speaker and a senior member of the Faculty, Professor Imran Oluwole Smith, SAN, posited that all transaction data are visible on all applications for everyone and traceably stored.
Professor Smith decried the obtainable public land administration system which is mostly manual hence cumbersome to administer, error-prone, and easily subject to manipulation and fraud.
He said the ugly trend discourages and dissuades many would-be Registry clienteles. According to the astute Researcher cum Academic, “Many would rather have the risk of postponing registration of their interest, or not registering at all. However, this risk, when it crystallizes, may itself prove to be very expensive and irredeemable even by the courts.”
Professor Smith posited that opportunity in the Nigerian real estate industry is worth an estimated US$ 56 billion. Yet, the potential has barely scratched the surface of possibility due to incomplete and unreliable land records which makes airtight due diligence highly problematic.
According to him, the introduction of a blockchain-based land registry will fasten the implementation of pending ownership changes in the land register and will bring about more transparency in transactions around the change of ownership in the land register.
Researchers, Dr. Abdulsalam Ajetunmobi and Laura Lo Coco of the Hertfordshire Law School made presentations that stem from ‘the evolution of blockchain and how it works’, and “blockchain as both ICT and Institution Technology’ respectively.
Dr. Ajetunmobi disclosed that Blockchain after being introduced in 2008 as a distributed ledger behind bitcoin transactions, has since taken on a life of its own, with interest coming from many other quarters.
On her part, Dr. Lo Coco emphasized the application of blockchain technology in legal matters as well as its importance in land transactions in Nigeria which include utility, challenges, and prospects.
In her contribution, Principal Investigator, Dr. Chamu Kuppuswamy emphasized the need for governments, businesses, and other organizations to deploy blockchain technology to meet a variety of needs, most of which have nothing to do with digital currency. She noted that the wariness within the industry has regrettably tethered land transactions in Nigeria to operate at a very basic level.
