By Isaac Massaquoi
The recent arrest and detention of prominent opposition leader Charles Margai has once again called the nation’s attention to the festering wound that we have continuously covered with plaster hoping we will wake up one morning to find the wound healed. It will never happen.
In the haste to condemn Margai for what he said about Kamajors and his ability to mobilise them and those sweeping comments about the first family, the nation appears to have forgotten how he came to make such statements and why he was so angry. The police say they are still investigating the matter with a view to bringing charges against the PMDC leader so I will resist the temptation to give my views about those comments and how the media reported the whole issue.
I can however say that LAND is at the heart of the dispute.
At the start of this piece, I referred to the land question as a festering wound which the nation has done very little to heal. The problems associated with land have multiplied in the last two decades to the extent that land may just be the issue that tipped the nation over the edge again. It may not be as senseless and widespread as Foday Sankoh’s disgraceful war against his own people but conflict that resulted from that could be very costly in lives and property. A nation rebuilding after Sankoh’s terrible war cannot afford any further destabilisation.
Hardly a day goes by now without newspapers and radio stations reporting fights, injuries and even deaths over plots of land. It’s very serious. That nation needs to be convinced by fair and concrete actions on the ground that the government is really serious about dealing with this menace that threatens the security of the state more than Charles Margai’s Kamajor Mobilisation threat.
I recall that the most horrific peace-time killing that ever happened in Sierra Leone – the brutal murder of a building inspector at the Ministry of Lands, Kenneth Moore took place as the poor man went around trying to take back state land from armed squatters. The circumstances of Moore’s murder are too gory to recount here. Even as I write, his family still does not know who killed him. All those arrested and charged for his murder were set free by the courts years ago. The police have told the nation anything about re-opening the case. It took almost 20 years to bring to justice the killers of a British boy Steven Lawrence but the Sierra Leone Police have already given up and Moore’s killers are walking free.
Journalist Ibrahim Foday was killed while investigating a land dispute just outside Freetown. His alleged killer is now on trial. There are many less high profile skirmishes taking place all over Freetown over land.
The other day I heard somebody complaining on Culture Radio’s breakfast program about an attempt by a man who claims to be working on behalf of Vice President Sam-Sumana to grab acres of land in the general area of Waterloo.
New settlements are springing up on the hills overlooking Freetown while other low income families are so desperate to get land that they are reclaiming the sea in the most rudimentary manner along the creeks of Freetown. At times like this, there are real dangers both on the hill and in these creeks. What is happening with land in Freetown in particular?
In 2006 I was offered a piece of land in a place called South Ridge, a community located at the back of Old School night club in Freetown. Together with about 25 other people, we were led by Ministry of Lands officials who rolled out a large floor plan for the whole area with all the plots of land clearly marked. I was impressed with what I saw on paper while quietly hoping that I will be able to hold on to plot 18 which was offered to me and experience life in a great community overlooking the bay.
I worked hard to secure all the necessary documents including a building permit. But every time I erected a wall to secure the plot an old man who lived close by would deploy thugs to pull the wall down. Even on the day the plots were being allocated, the old man kept challenging the Lands officials telling them the whole area belonged to him and he would throw us all off the land in the end. I got fed up with the struggle with the old man and his band of thugs who were constantly deployed against us and decided to give up.
In 2008, I went back to the Ministry of Lands with all my documents and explained my problem to one of the ministers. The minister’s reply shocked me beyond belief. He asked me to stay off South Ridge and write a letter to the ministry asking for another plot to be allocated to me in another part of Freetown. I asked him if the powers of the state did not extend to South Ridge and how come one old man with half a dozen machete-wielding thugs could stand against the authority of the state. He looked at me as if he wanted to tell me that there was a stronger force behind the old man which even he couldn't dare challenge.
I left the ministry very disappointed and resolved never to go back to South Ridge on that land issue. My last confrontation with the old man happened only a few weeks after the killing of Kenneth Moore who was helping us secure our plots. He was butchered in the same place by some of the same thugs I found on plot 18 on that day.
The latest I have heard is that the old man has sold off plot 18 and the same ministry has singed those documents, paving way for a huge building to go up on the same land. So imagine this: I have authentic government of Sierra Leone documents for plot 18 and the man who is building a house there now also has correct papers approved by the ministry of lands. How come nobody in the ministry including those who signed off those plots called me up to ask how a plot allocated to me ended up in the hands of somebody else?
I also recall that in one of my encounters with the old man, he challenged me to take him to court over the land and he would "teach me a lesson in court". He even called his lawyer, a very prominent one in Freetown and told him I was being a nuisance on his land and instructed him to bring an action against me. He probably realised that I would never go down that route because the case would take forever and the legal bills would probably be enough for me to buy myself a plot of land from good families in Freetown.
There are many other Sierra Leoneans who have suffered the same fate but have done so in silence because they did not have access to a newspaper or radio station to speak out in the way I am doing now. I am not even sure the authorities will do anything about this grave injustice. All this reinforces the warped belief that lawlessness pays.
Now people are using unconventional means to secure even land allocated to them by the government. They hire thugs, arm them with machetes and deploy them on such land with clear instruction to attack and possibly kill anyone showing up to lay claim to the property. Where is the state and its monopoly over the use of force within the territory we call Sierra Leone? It looks like the formal state has capitulated to the shadow state.
Charles Margai threatened to bring Kamajors to Freetown. I suspect his intention was to do just what the old man is doing at South Ridge; the same thing new warlords are doing all along the Freetown peninsular. It was probably the threat to mobilise the dreaded war time militia that caused the outcry about Margai’s utterances. May be there were some “subversive” intentions. The “investigation” should bring that out.
I honestly don’t think the Ministry of Lands alone can solve this problem. Some of their personnel are neck-deep in the mess and they are completely shameless about it. Also, haphazard measures like breaking down a wall here, inscribing demolition notices on buildings and making threats on radio are totally inadequate. These are only feel-good actions that give the impression that a minister is fearlessly confronting the issues in the same way Sylvester Stallone feels good watching himself do some “impossible” stunts in an action thriller with the aid of modern technology.
The whole nation led by the government, must start an open and honest debate about land rights particularly in urban areas, and let’s also put the necessary legislation in place after the debate and enforce those laws no matter who is involved.
The old man at South Ridge and the other warlords all along the Freetown peninsular, including the one who told me last week at Tokeh village that their council must approve any land allocation the government makes in that area, should be made to feel the full extent of the power of the state. For now they are running a state within a state and the mega state appears powerless.
I have no reason to hope things will change soon. Sorry!
