ASSESSMENT OF ENCROACHMENT ON PUBLIC LAND IN AJODA NEW TOWN, OYO STATE

Abstract

Public land is crucial for the execution of developmental projects in nations. However, studies have indicated that most times public land are often encroached. This study assessed the encroachment of public land in Ajoda New Town with a view of developing a framework for future protection against encroachment. This study adopted a case study approach in which residents of Ajoda New Town (ANT)- a scheme of Oyo State Government, Nigeria were involved as respondents. Respondents were randomly selected, and, a total of 322 out of the completed questionnaires were found valid for data analysis. Also, two rounds of Delphi questionnaires were served for framework development on Fifteen (15) Delphi panel which comprises of three (3) Land Surveyors, three (3) Estate Surveyors, three (3) Lawyers and three (3) Town Planners, all of whom are staffers of the Oyo State Housing Corporation, with the inclusion of three (3) Academics who are experienced in the subject area. The study employed both descriptive and inferential statistics which includes; weighted mean score, kendall’s coefficient of concordance, factor analysis and binary regression. The study revealed that encroachment level in Ajoda New Town is 60%. Also, findings of factor analysis indicated that faulty administrative strategy/implementation, hostile attitude of original settlers and excessive land acquisition by the government are the major factors responsible for land encroachment in the study area and this contributed a cumulative loading of about 90.385%. The binary regression result shows that out of four variables considered for the independent variables, only the variable ‘adequate setback’ contributed significantly to the effect of encroachment on land development. This was statistically significant at (p=0.042<0.05). At the second round of the Delphi survey for the framework, it was observed that all the Delphi panel ranked all the component that constituted the framework well above average of the Likert-type scale adopted for the study. The score of each criterion for validation of the framework revealed that the developed framework can be adopted for future protection of public land against encroachment. The following recommendations were made among others; Government should imbibe the culture of following up with previous government programmes which will encourage effective implementation of government projects. The framework developed in this study is adjudged to be a comprehensive and robust chart that should be implemented by the Oyo State Housing Corporation for decision making on prevention of encroachment in Ajoda New Town.