Land is an important natural resource, for the prosperity of humanity, for the survival of the human race, and the maintenance of all terrestrial ecosystems. Land is not a resource meant to be exploited alone, but a vital instrument for achieving improved biological, socioeconomic, and physical environments. Land has diverse importance and importantly it is essential to the preservation of the indigenous knowledge of the local inhabitants and their cultural heritage. The recent trend in the operation of land-grabbers, popularly known as “Ajagungbale” in Imota, Ikorodu, Lagos state, like any other place in Nigeria, has taken a more drastic and grievous inclination as it affects the social, economy, environment, and human rights of their victims. Land-grabbing is a subset of the much larger process of large-scale land acquisitions. The phenomenon is not new but has occurred at an unprecedented scale during the past few years in Imota.
Over the past few years, the ingenious people of Imota, a town under Ikorodu Local Government Area in Lagos, have been held hostage and terrorised by land-grabbers. This problem started a few years ago when a group of armed men commonly referred to as stormed a community called Agunfoye in Imota, forcefully ejected the original owners from their ancestral land. They took over the land and started selling out to unsuspecting members of the public. Sometime in 2021, another community called Salabo in Imota was forcefully taken by this same set of people and till now the real owners of the land have no access to their land. Recently, two communities: Ibere and Itamorisa were equally affected.
Across many states, several lives have been lost, many have been injured to this menace and the agricultural produce of the locals has been destroyed by these land-grabbers. It is worrisome and saddening that in a country that is governed by democratically elected government officials, non-state actors like land-grabbers will assume the role of constituted authority. These land-grabbers act with impunity and defiance of morality and legality by making themselves mini-gods on the good of the generality of the public. Meanwhile, the current scenario which has been going on in Imota for years without help from the appropriate quarter is not only an act of injustice from the side of the government but also an act of neglect that symbolises a lack of sincerity of purpose by the government in respecting and fulfilling its part of the social contract to the good people of Imota.
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The lawless acts of these land-grabbers have brought the town to its knee begging for mercy. Their activities have cost the town some developmental oriented initiatives and projects because private investors and key individuals are afraid and sceptical of investing in such places due to the excesses of these non-state actors. Many places where land-grabbers hold sway, they reflect the state of nature as envisaged by Thomas Hobbes. Thomas Hobbes’s book ‘Leviathan’ (1651) captures his main ideas around morality being the same as the law. In other words, our actions are governed by the law and not our conscience. This very notion is depicted in his version of the state of nature where no laws exist. Life in the state of nature in Hobbes’s words is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’ and also that man is in continual fear, and danger of violent death.”
Once we begin to examine life without rules and regulations, we can begin to question and reflect on our morality. The menace of land-grabbing is becoming unbearable and the excesses of these non-state actors need to be curbed with immediate effect. The Lagos State government signed into law in 2016 the Lagos State Properties Protection Bill, also known as the anti-land-grabbing bill, with defaulters facing a 20-year jail term. Legally, land-grabbing is a criminal offence according to the Lagos State Properties Protection Bill (2016), but it is being noticed that the majority of these perpetrators largely go unpunished while they lead luxurious lifestyles built on the pain, sweat, agony and sorrow of the indigenous people who have been forcefully ejected from their ancestral lands. In the case of land-grabbing, the right of the people is being violated and trampled upon, that of the right to property and the protection against unlawful dispossession of that property.
I write this piece as an indigene of Imota. I have seen the negative implication and social consequences of these precarious and nefarious activities by these non-state actors on the town itself and the good people of Imota. The people have suffered socially, economically, mentally, medically and environmentally from these provocative and unjust invasions of these land-grabbers. It is also a wake-up call to the government and well-meaning Nigerians to come to the aid and rescue of the good people of Imota who are currently under siege laid by land-grabbers. This is also a challenge to the various government apparatuses to fight for and protect the people of Imota and ensure justice is served because justice delayed is justice denied. How long shall the people look and watch while their landed properties and ancestral lands are being taken away from them?
Shokoya, a postgraduate student of the University of Ibadan, writes in via shokoyaolakunle99@gmail.com
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