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Nigeria’s Public Procurement Act 2007 was a response to the World Bank’s assessment of Nigeria’s Public Procurement system in 1999. The assessment revealed weaknesses in the system which called for urgent reforms. The Country`s Procurement Assessment Report (CPAR) showed that Nigeria’s public procurement system was without a legal framework, hence the setbacks. This paper investigates the impact of the Public Procurement Act 2007 on the functions of the governing councils of federal universities in Nigeria, applying the doctrinal research methodology. The study finds that there was another federal legislation: Universities (Miscellaneous Provision) Act No 11 of 1993 (as Amended) that established the federal universities’ governing councils and vested in them the authority to run these universities. The powers of the vice chancellors under the Public Procurement Act 2007 overlap with the functions of the governing councils under the extant 1993 Act. While the later Act made the Vice Chancellor the accounting officer with special responsibilities on issues relating to procurement, it was silent on the level of authority that the governing councils could exert on the universities. The paper also finds some merits and demerits of the Public Procurement Act 2007 in federal universities and concludes that there are still weaknesses in the enforcement and enforceability of the Act. It recommended chiefly, an amendment of the Public Procurement Act 2007 together with the Universities (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1993 to resolve the overlapping mandates.

The Nigerian Land Use Act (LUA), which governs contemporary Nigerian land law, provides that any disposition of land must have the prior consent of the appropriate authority under the LUA. However, the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria Act, which regulates the disposition of eligible bank assets, contains provisions that imply that the requisite consent under the LUA is not required for the disposition of an eligible bank asset consisting of land. This article interrogates the propriety of the provisions of the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria Act in this regard and argues that, in view of the fact that the LUA is a statute with constitutional flavour by virtue of its entrenchment in the Nigerian Constitution, the LUA's provisions supersede the provisions of any conflicting law.

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Compulsory acquisition of land (private property) is permitted under Nigerian law, but such acquisition must be conducted in accordance with the prescriptions of law. A fundamental criterion in a compulsory acquisition is the compliance with the public purpose requirement. Increasingly, state governments in Nigeria have been engaging in massive land grabbing for many reasons that tend to challenge the public purpose requirement. In certain cases, including governments’ acquisition for mass housing projects, the resultant beneficiaries are far from qualifying for the ascription of the term ‘public’ for the purpose of compliance with the public purpose requirement. This casts doubt on the acquiring authority’s compliance with the extant law. Using a doctrinal methodology, this paper argues for the prioritization of public interest over private interest. The paper aims to provide a roadmap for ensuring that public interest requirement reigns supreme in any compulsory acquisition in Nigeria.