Evaluating Blockchain Technology for Land Registry Management in Rivers State

Land registration fraud and title duplication are entrenched problems in Rivers State, South South Nigeria, where complex overlapping claims between statutory and customary tenure systems create persistent conflict and economic uncertainty. This study empirically evaluates blockchain technology as an infrastructure for land registry management in Rivers State, addressing the gap between blockchain theoretical applications and contextualised deployment evidence in Nigeria. A proof-of-concept system was developed using Hyperledger Fabric, implementing land title recording, transfer, and verification smart contracts tested against a synthetic dataset of 500 land parcels derived from Port Harcourt registry records. The evaluation framework covers transaction throughput, query latency, data immutability verification, and consensus failure resilience under simulated attack conditions. Results show Hyperledger Fabric achieving a throughput of 2,200 transactions per second and query latency under 400 milliseconds, meeting performance requirements for state-level registry operations. The study critically analyses the governance prerequisites for blockchain adoption, identifying digital identity infrastructure and legal recognition of blockchain records under the Land Use Act as critical non-technical prerequisites. Comparative analysis with blockchain land registry implementations in Ghana and Sweden provides contextualisation. Keywords: blockchain, land registry, Hyperledger Fabric, Rivers State, smart contract