A pledge is a kind of indigenous mortgage by which the owner-occupier of land, in order to secure an advance of money or monies worth, gives possession and use of land to the pledge creditors until the debt is fully paid or discharged. A pledge usually occurs when a person is pressed with the need to do something or fulfil an obligation but has no means of doing so; whenever the needs of a person is required to be met, it is customarily recognised that he can pledge his property in order to obtain his needs or fulfil his duties. The pledgee is absolutely entitled to enjoy all the rights accrued to the former holders; he is entitled to use the land as he thinks fit unless otherwise stated. It is unlikely however, that he can alienate it to another person without the consent of the pledgor. A pledge is usually for a fixed period of time (i.e. one or two years), but in a large number of cases, it is yearly.
A pledge of land has two forms:
1. Where land is to be used by the pledgee until the pledgor pays back the loan or debt. Here, the pledgor still has to pay back the loan even if the land is destroyed by an Act of God.
2. Where the payment of the loan is used by the pledge of the land for a particular period of time usually for one farming season or a year.
The fundamental principle of a pledge, under native law and custom, is that it can always be redeemed by the pledgor or his representatives. It is never lost under the principle of ‘foreclosure’ as is the case under mortgage. The popular maxim is that “once a pledge always a pledge”. Thus the cardinal principle of the pledge systems is its ultimate redeemability.
