Land Administration and Cadastral Information Management Challenges in Rivers State

Effective land administration underpins property rights security, investment facilitation, and revenue generation from land assets, yet in Rivers State in Nigeria's South South geopolitical zone, land administration systems are characterised by fragmented records, customary tenure overlay, inadequate cadastral coverage, and institutional inefficiencies that create uncertainty and corruption vulnerabilities. This study examines the challenges of land administration and cadastral information management in Rivers State, focusing on Port Harcourt Metropolitan Area and three rural local government areas: Degema, Ahoada East, and Khana. Document analysis of Rivers State Lands Bureau records, court land dispute files, and Land Use Charge assessment databases was conducted alongside semi-structured interviews with 52 key informants including land administrators, legal practitioners, estate surveyors, and community land rights holders. A cadastral coverage assessment using satellite imagery compared official parcel records against observable land use on the ground to estimate the proportion of properties outside the formal registration system. Results indicate that less than 35 percent of land parcels in Port Harcourt have any form of formal land documentation, and cadastral records have not been systematically updated since the 1990s in most of the rural study areas. Multiple issuance of titles to identical parcels is documented in 22 percent of sampled dispute cases, reflecting the absence of a reliable parcel identification and conflict detection mechanism. The study recommends adoption of fit-for-purpose land administration approaches, digital cadastral platform development, and systematic community land rights adjudication programmes. Keywords: land administration, cadastral, Rivers State, land tenure, South South Nigeria.