By Joseph Lamin Kamara
Search For Common Ground (SFCG), also known as Talking Drum Studios, is implementing a project aimed at bringing reform in the land tenure system in Sierra Leone.
Sierra Leone presently operates on a dual land tenure system which provides for inheritance of land within a family in the provinces, but allows selling of land in Freetown and its environs, in the Western Area. Although land acquisition is mainly hereditary in the rural areas and land is considered the property of natives who can be a family or a community or a village, land lease has become common there especially between communities and investment companies.
That system of dualism in acquiring land left behind by the British colonial rule has attracted enormous investments in the country. But it has in turn culminated in several disputes between financially powerful individuals particularly those desiring to acquire vast acreages in the western area, and between community people and investment groups in the provinces.
Many civil society organisations, rights’ activists and academics have argued that communities, women particularly, in the rural areas have been unfairly treated under the present land law in the country.
In his book, Land Tenure in Sierra Leone: The Law, Dualism and the Making of a Land Policy, former Land Law lecturer at Fourah Bay College, Dr Aderemi Desmond Renner-Thomas, advocates for a change in Sierra Leone’s land policy into a unified one.
The online news outlet the The Patriotic Vanguard quotes him thus: “The main advantage of unification of the legal system is that it not only eliminates the choice of law problems and the inevitable certainties and complexities of dualism, but it should provide an opportunity to create a single national law, compounded of rules drawn from the two existing systems, but shorn of the objectionable features in each system, such as the undue technicalities of the rules of the received English land law on one hand and the uncertainties of the rules of customary law on the other (p. 308).”
SFCG`s project, titled: “Understanding and advocating for a change to the land tenure system in Sierra Leone,” generally aims “To strengthen the transparency of and make more equitable land governance for small-scale farmers, especially women, in law and in practice, to promote equitable and sustainable food security and livelihoods in Sierra Leone.”
SFCG, an international nonprofit organisation, has been in the country since the early 2000s when the 11-year civil war ended. Talking Drum Studio, as it is commonly known in the country, has been seeking a common avenue to resolve conflicts emanating from war. Its conflict resolution strategies include the famous radio soap opera ‘Atunda Ayenda’ meaning ‘lost and found’ in the local Madingo language.
In implementing the land tenure project, SFCG is partnering with NAMATI, a legal empowerment body with the focus of providing legal aid to local community people.
NAMATI’s director, Sonkita Conteh, said at an SFCG partners’ meeting on Friday in Freetown that his organisation had been doing grass root advocacy on land laws in local communities and that they were educating the people on land issues which were challenging them.
Conteh also said they had filed law suits against some paramount chiefs for unscrupulous land transactions that disadvantaged their subjects.
The Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) which is funding the programme believes Sierra Leone’s land policy requires a reformation that ensures equitable distribution.
“Land, as you all know, is a major source of conflict. We’ve seen the damage land acquisition can cause in Sierra Leone,” OSIWAS` country officer Joe Pemagbi said.
Pemagbi also believes women don’t have access to land and it was on those bases that OSIWA “decided to come with a policy recommendation.” He said they were seeking to engage the ministry of land, and though it he acknowledged inequality in land distribution seemed entrenched in the country, he thought their efforts would have some impacts.
OSIWA is a governance-focused, advocacy and grant making foundation and it is part of the global network of Open Society Foundations. Established in 2000, the organisation has funded hundreds of innovative projects in the country.
SFCG’s project is a year long project which was scheduled to have started in November last year but officially began only last month due to the prevailing Ebola outbreak.
According to SFCG’s country director, Joseph Jimmy Sankaituah, the project comes at a time Sierra Leone is trying to draft a new land policy. Sankaituah believes some multinational companies investing in the rural areas are operating at the detriment of community people and that the latter have no idea about land policies.
“We believe that the community that will be impacted should be involved . . . the UN guiding principles require that people should be involved in decision making,” he said.
The specific objectives of the project include influencing ongoing formulation and implementation of national land policy for the benefit of rural people in Sierra Leone, ensuring that women secure equitable access to and control over land and building knowledge on land governance contributing to substantive improvements in the monitoring, sharing and uptake of land related knowledge.
According to Talking Drum Studio, achieving those can ensure food security in the country and equitable distribution of land.
© Politico 29/04/15
