Statutory Corporations Research Articles

Compulsory acquisition of land in Nigeria: A case study

For many centuries, the issue of compulsory land acquisition in Nigeria has constituted one of the most important issues confronting many Nigerian communities. In pre-colonial times, lands of many village communities were regularly required for public purposes such as burial grounds, fetish grounds, playing fields, etc. Since then, naturally, the demand for lands for public purposes has increased tremendously, particularly with the need for more land for agricultural and industrial development projects. Consequently, Nigerian Federal and State Governments as well as Statutory Corporations have had occasion to exercise their powers of compulsory acquisition of occupied and unoccupied lands; and in 1978, the Federal Government promulgated the Land Use Decree. This article looks at these developments within an empirical framework, and argues in favour of a diligent and adequate implementation of the decree at this its initial stage.

TECHNOLOGY, ADMINISTRATION AND POLITICS

Abstract: Technology is now a subject of politics, but we have little expertise in handling science and technology as issues in politics. Most of the solutions put forward to solve the technology and politics problem have their shortcomings, whether they be the “new calculus” of computer‐based decisions taking into account all possible values; participation and decentralization; competing sources of advice or the implication contained in the Report of the Royal Commission on Australian Government Administration that government be “elevated” to partnership with the bureaucracy. The technology‐based issue of energy illustrates this move towards politics, first through debates about whether certain values should be excluded from the calculus; secondly by the move to increase the degree of coordination not only within the energy complex but also in its relationship with other social objectives; and finally by posing the need for “brokerage” skills beyond those of profession or expertise. In fact the vision of the future as a knowledgeable society is now a description of the past. Our technological missions, once left to the protected world of the autonomous statutory corporations with their “little” politics, are being pushed into the area of “big” politics with its policy competition. The politicization of technology throws up the need for much more dynamic models of the relationship between politics and administration as neither the dichotomy nor continuum model is adequate. As a start, it may be useful to analyse the ways in which an administrative continuum and a political continuum twist and spiral around each other.

THE STATUTORY CORPORATION—A NOTE ON THE THEORY OF AUTONOMY

Readers of this journal, especially those who watch developments affecting the machinery of government in Canberra, will no doubt have noticed the rehabilitation of the concept of statutory independence—a notion that, in some academic circles, had been virtually written off as having little or no relevance in the real world, where the general tendency has been towards an extension of government control and co‐ordination of bureaucratic systems. Although it is much too early to evaluate, with suitable scholarly detachment, the significance of the administrative changes initiated since December, 1972, it seems a safe observation that for a small group of government agencies at least, the Labor Government has committed itself to the idea of independence. This much is clear from its declared aim of giving the Australian Broadcasting Commission more autonomy and the decision, recently announced, to reconstitute the Postmaster‐General's Department into two separate statutory corporations.

The Reorganisation of Nigeria's Administration

The period of military rule in Nigeria has brought fundamental changes in the country's administrative system, which foreshadow further significant ones to come. This is a useful point at which to summarise the changes so far made and consider what major problems remain.Nigeria achieved independence from colonial rule in i960 with a federal system of government in which the administrative system was largely modelled on that of Britain. The Federation consisted at that stage of three Regions, the smallest of which was larger in terms of population than all but six of the 48 mainland countries in Africa. The federal and regional administrations were organised along lines familiar to the British civil service: the centrally deployed staff of the ministries and departments were divided into administrative, executive, secretarial, clerical, and miscellaneous classes, while specialised classes existed for those in the professional and technical grades. In addition, statutory corporations were established at both federal and regional levels to operate public enterprises, notably for marketing and development finance.

Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach

Since the turn of the twentieth century, legislation in Western countries has expanded rapidly to reverse the brief dominance of laissez faire during the nineteenth century. The state no longer merely protects against violations of person and property through murder, rape, or burglary but also restricts ‘discrimination’ against certain minorities, collusive business arrangements, ‘jaywalking’, travel, the materials used in construction, and thousands of other activities. The activities restricted not only are numerous but also range widely, affecting persons in very different pursuits and of diverse social backgrounds, education levels, ages, races, etc. Moreover, the likelihood that an offender will be discovered and convicted and the nature and extent of punishments differ greatly from person to person and activity to activity. Yet, in spite of such diversity, some common properties are shared by practically all legislation, and these properties form the subject matter of this essay.

Ackroyds Air Travel, Ltd. v. Director of Public Prosecutions.

Air Law — Scheduled International Services — Restriction to Statutory Corporations — Private Company Prohibited from Landing Aircraft — Feeder Services by Charter Plane Arranged by Travel Agency — Liability of Travel Agency for Aiding and Abetting Operation of Prohibited Services — Civil Aviation Act, 1946.