Land rights and the scheming son-in-law. Customary and modern ways of acquiring rights over land in N'zara (northern Togo)
Rouveroy van Nieuwaal, E.A.B. van; Rouveroy van Nieuwaal Baerends, E.A. van
Working Papers, African Studies Centre, University of Leiden 8: 31
1982
Document Number: 272824
The paper examines the discrepancy between the acquisition of rights over land in Togo under customary law and under the codified real property law. Following the course of a specific example of litigation in N'zara, the principal town of the administrative district of Mango in northern Togo, the paper describes the ethnic and social composition of the area and indicates also the additional complications arising from the Islamic religious background of some, but not all, of those connected with the litigation. The wider interest of the paper, not specific to the instant Togolese case, is that the reasonable expectation of parties who have concluded an agreement under clearly defined and by them well understood rules of customary tenure, may well be defeated by a party who, with superior knowledge, appeals to a codified national system of land tenure adopted as the legacy of colonial government. Tribal customary law may in practice be better able to take account of social and personal tensions between participants in local litigation of this type.