On Friday the first day of March 2024, purporting to behave in keeping with the Land Use Act, Governor Makinde of Oyo State, the Omi Tuntun exponent, put a discover within the public area that he was buying roughly 3,149 hectares alongside the Moniya-Ijaiye Street within the Akinyele Native Authorities Space of Oyo State for ‘overriding public curiosity’. The general public discover then went on to spell out what the Governor considers as overriding public curiosity, to wit, the institution of the Ilu Tuntun Enterprise District.
Now, on the face of it, a governor in Nigeria has the ability to amass land for overriding public curiosity and to revoke no matter prior certificates of occupancy or titles there could also be. It is a vestige from the darkish days of navy rule in Nigeria. The Land Use Decree is a poisoned chalice which the federal government of Normal Obasanjo left with Nigeria in 1979 and it has been an albatross across the neck of Nigeria ever since.
The thought of a Central Enterprise District has come to stick with city planning and planners worldwide. However, if the CBD within the UK, India, America, Japan, China and Australia all common roughly 300 hectares, what does the governor of Oyo State know that directors in all these different nations have no idea? Who’re the city planners who instructed the governor that this white elephant mission is smart in a State the place not a single hearth hydrant works?
There are a variety of issues with the formidable governor’s proposed thought. This text will broach just a few of these issues. The primary is the utter thoughtlessness of attempting to uproot over 200,000 individuals from their ancestral homesteads which additionally occurs to be the bodily location of a few of the most storied occasions in Yoruba historical past. I confer with the Ibadan-Ijaye warfare which led to 1867.
On the worldwide timeline, in 1868, only a 12 months aside from Kurunmi’s final stand, the Individuals fought the battle of Gettysburg. Right now, all of Gettysburg is historic monument full with museums and different studying services geared towards guaranteeing that Individuals of the longer term find out about what occurred in Gettysburg. Right here in Nigeria, a governor is purporting to show Ijaye, Alabata, Agbedo and Molarere amongst others into an ill-considered Enterprise District. There’s a cause why no Governor of Pennsylvania will even contemplate turning the sacred land at Gettysburg right into a ‘enterprise district’.
In his landmark ebook of anthropology, Europe and the Individuals With out Historical past, Professor Eric Wolf, then of Columbia College, touched upon a big theme of data and erasure. In that ebook, we see what makes the world contemplate that solely Europe has historical past. We learn the way some Africans have, over the centuries, erased African historical past for a large number of pottage. And we learn the way some Europeans, seeing what some feckless Africans have performed with African historical past, swooped in for the epistemic kill.
The second downside is that Oyo State can not pay a good worth for 3,149 hectares of land displacing over 200,000 individuals at the moment. Assuming however not conceding that the parcel of land that the governor is eyeing is devoid of historic content material, assuming that the individuals might be resettled on one other 3,149 hectares of land with a mere govt order – the reality stays that Oyo State doesn’t have cash sufficient to pay a good worth for the hectares the governor needs. The fiscal scenario in Oyo is so dire that the precedence of presidency must be enhancing the capability of residents to pay taxes, not hamstringing the individuals.
Many Nigerian governors have taken to utilizing the Draconian Land Use Act for ‘enterprise’ ends. They make the land they take over into the haven of the bourgeois and pat themselves on the again for a job properly performed. The land which hitherto supported a whole lot of farmers is with a whim transformed into enclaves of plutocrats. There is only one downside: the short-changed lots will keep in mind how privilege and energy colluded to rob them of their ancestral cartography. Nothing good might be constructed on a basis of injustice.
Providing residents the extremely devalued naira as an incentive, urgent bulldozers and earthmoving equipment into service, and mobilizing NURTW thugs to intimidate dissenting voices could seem straightforward to do however nobody ought to dwell within the delusion that these measures will hold the lots mute for lengthy.
The third downside is that the realm which the governor is purporting to grab for commerce is residence to no less than 19 uncommon species of the oil palm tree, amongst different uncommon ecological sources in that neighborhood. Has the governor certainly commissioned an environmental impression evaluation as required by legislation earlier than his purported appropriation? Is the governor conscious that Environmental Influence Evaluation is a situation precedent to knowledgeable improvement?
Taking the shortcut to any vacation spot has grow to be second nature to many Nigerians together with Nigerian public officers and ‘constituted authorities’. They make anybody who insists on due course of and correct measures into villains within the public eye. However we have to remind ourselves that there are not any shortcuts to anyplace price going. If a public determine makes an attempt to do it, we must always activate citizen suasion and the legislation. Let correct steps be taken and be seen to be taken. We must always assume issues by means of earlier than performing, not the opposite approach.
The fourth ‘downside’ is that the governor has now unwittingly painted himself right into a zugzwang relating to land already coated by the Nigerian Railway Company Act and by extension, the President of the Federation. It’s no information that the governor who has expressed essentially the most irritation on the latest reinforcement of Native Authorities Autonomy in Nigeria is our Governor Makinde.
This overreaching relating to land firmly in federal hold smacks of tactlessness, to say the least. What’s it with our governor/gamekeeper turned poacher?
Figuring out that the governor is a product of a society that eliminated historical past from the general public syllabus for many years helps to elucidate his choice on the ‘enterprise district’ that he, maybe, genuinely thinks is a precedence. It’s conceivable that the governor’s blind spot is even shared by his cupboard within the case of the Ilu Tuntun enterprise proposition. However rheumy eyes must be proven the rheum in order that well being and sweetness are restored. You will need to insist on correct measures and to withstand half measures.Hopefully, the governor will rescind this ill-advised transfer. If he doesn’t, residents ought to hold this matter in view for the subsequent electoral season. We can not afford to disregard the selections of those that make us right into a bunch of barbarians. We now have historical past.Tade Ipadeola is a poet laureate, lawyer, and tradition advocate. He’s the winner of the 2013 Nigeria Prize for Literature. He might be reached on [email protected]
