TheCable

He looked so sad as he walked into the Muson Centre; the venue of my play, Fajuyi. “Wetin happen?” I asked my friend. “My brother I am bleeding,” he responded.

“Bleeding?” I asked. “Yes o land grabbers don kill me.. The extortion, the harassment, the insecurity and the millions I have to spend to keep them off has killed my business and is wrecking my health.”

At that point, I could only say take heart and walked away. Then I got another call from another investor in Lagos and this time the story was more gory.

He had been confronted by land grabbers who gave him an option. He was asked to release specified units from his development or they encroached. He screamed, “How?”

He had a joint venture with a family that legitimately owned the land, got all necessary government approvals, and paid all dues and fees both legitimate and otherwise and yet he was now confronted with a force that defied all legal barriers.

His run towards the authorities –both legal and traditional– all fell futile as the level of involvement of almost all organs of government can only be imagined.

As he spoke, I remember seeing a sign somewhere in Lekki, with the sign, “This land belongs to Chief Bode George” and the import of that sign hit me.

It was a lack of confidence in the system and authorities to protect his land from land grabbers who feared no one and resorted to his personal weight as the last bastion of protection.

If we are going to tell ourselves the truth, the issue of land grabbing is now an epidemic as roves of scavengers move in total complicity with traditional authorities and forces within the Lagos state system to cause mayhem and stymy government efforts in reigniting the economy.

Mr. Governor let me tell you very categorically that you will fail if you do not tackle this effrontery headlong and you must start from your system.

The agencies overseeing this area have been totally rendered ineffective as a result of their complicity. If you go to the Lands Registry for a search, for example, they will give you a result that can land you in jail.

This happened to me personally when a search result came out fake after we had disbursed N150 million despite us holding a ‘legitimate’ result from your people. Na EFCC cell I dey shout my innocence.

You will have to carry out an extensive Murtala Mohammed type of reform within your civil service. Heads must roll and younger people with passion and verve used to replace these ones who are utterly corrupt and whose activities if not tackled would make you look like clay feet governor.

The police also have to be engaged. How you will do that one is what I don’t know. You see two sets of police teams on different sides of a land tussle.

One team from Denton and the other from Shomolu; both led by senior officers and with different mandates. You do not have to be told that corruption is fighting.

The traditional authorities. This is where the wahala is. The chieftaincy families and other such traditional power brokers. By their very nature, the structures are usually personified and not hinged on any type of standardised operational structure.

So Chief Lekan can give a go ahead and the stepson of his 7th wife will stand up and the land buyer who has borrowed money from the bank to build a factory or development is left in the middle bleeding like my friend watching his business and in some cases, his dreams go down the drain as the system partners with thugs in wrecking it all.

You will not be able to perfectly delineate this situation well if you do not take into consideration the fact that what Lagos actually sells to the world is opportunity hinged on land which is in limited quantity.

Lagos has no oil or any meaningful natural resources it can sell but what it has in abundance is its positioning as a rich coastal trading post and a huge market for opportunities and this brings in droves of investors creating jobs, revving the internally generated revenue of the state, infrastructural development amongst others; making Lagos one of the most desirous investment opportunities on the continent.

But with this land-grabbing menace, we may begin to see a pushback. We are already seeing Ogun state better positioning itself and making ease of business slightly better than in Lagos.

The wahala in Lagos for a businessman is too much. From multiple taxation to power challenges to infrastructural challenges and all that and now with land grabbing added to it, you will begin to see why Lagos is just so tiring.

Mr. Governor Sir, you may have to set up a task force to critically engage all stakeholders on this matter with the strict mandate to look at this issue very succinctly with a clear aim of streamlining land delivery with ease to legitimate users.

Thanks.