Decolonising Real Estate Knowledge: An Epistemological Critique of Estate Management Education and Professional Practice in Nigeria

This dissertation develops an epistemological critique of the knowledge framework underlying estate management education and professional practice in Nigeria, arguing that the discipline's foundational theoretical and practical concepts remain uncritically embedded in Anglo-American intellectual traditions that do not adequately represent the property relations, land tenure systems, and market realities of Nigerian and African contexts. The study draws on decolonial theory, philosophy of social science, and African knowledge traditions to examine how the epistemological foundations of estate management as taught in Nigerian universities and practised by NIESV members reflect colonial intellectual inheritance and what the implications are for the discipline's relevance and effectiveness. The dissertation proceeds through four original analytical movements: a genealogical analysis of how British estate surveying knowledge was transferred to Nigeria through colonial governance institutions and the early professional bodies, and how it was institutionalised in postcolonial university curricula without fundamental adaptation; a survey-based analysis of how current estate management educators and practitioners in twelve Nigerian universities assess the relevance of core curriculum content to Nigerian practice realities; a comparative analysis of how Nigerian customary land tenure concepts and transaction practices diverge from the theoretical models used in professional training; and a constructive proposal for an Africanised estate management knowledge framework that integrates indigenous land relations, local market realities, and African philosophical traditions about land and property into a revised epistemological foundation for the discipline. The dissertation constitutes a significant contribution to both the estate management academic literature and the decolonisation of knowledge debate in African professional disciplines. Keywords: decolonisation, epistemology, estate management education, knowledge theory, Nigeria.