The State of the Gambia is a colonially created institution crafted in a manner that it serves and benefits, first and foremost the officials who work in it. The higher the position the more benefits, incentives, and immunities officials enjoy. This is most evident in land acquisition than any other area. Since Independence, the Government has prioritised and ensured that public officials have pieces of land allocated to them at the expense of ordinary citizens.
This is the saga we are witnessing today in Sukuta Salagi. Indeed, public officials have the right to get a home and there is no issue with the Government facilitating that. But that same Government must also realise that every other Gambian, regardless of their social, economic, or political standing, also deserves a home which the Government must guarantee as a matter of law and rights.
Therefore, community lands must benefit community members first and foremost. The powerful and the rich cannot allocate themselves plots of land from communities while denying the indigenes the space to have a home in their own ancestral lands. Just as this lady rightly and succinctly observed, Yaya Jammeh, by virtue of being a public officer went to Kanilai to build a palace. Adama Barrow, by virtue of being a public officer, has the capacity to build a house in Mankamang Kunda. That’s their birthplace. So, the people of Sukuta must also have space in their birthplace to build a home.
Why therefore are homes demolished in Sukuta Salagi? Go to Salagi and you will see that the most beautiful and largest mansions are owned by Government officials and well-off individuals who are not natives of Sukuta. How did they get those plots of land to build homes? They got them because the Government goes to communities to cut out their ancestral lands and call it a layout and then allocate plots to Government officials, and those who can buy at exorbitant prices! That’s an injustice.
Every layout or any SSHFC housing estate you find in this country is cut out from communities and it is Government officials and the wealthy who get plots. They make members of the community lose land for homes and agriculture while others are forced to live outside their ancestral areas. This discriminatory and unjust land management system is what needs to stop.
Unfortunately, and deliberately, the Barrow Government is perpetuating the same aged-old unjust legacy thereby deepening and widening injustice, inequality, and corruption on land ownership and use. Our land management policies and laws have always favoured those in public offices and those with wealth. They always disadvantage the poor and ordinary citizens while businesses and the rich are given prime land in the name of investment, tourism, or economic development. Even protected lands such as forests, wetlands, beaches, and other places are not spared as they cut our pieces to hand over to people who are connected with the Government or wealthy.
Brusubi was cut out of lands belonging to Brufut, Sukuta and Bijilo. The communities whose lands were taken were given pittance as compensation. I know this because I was a journalist 30 years ago and I followed the creation and development of Brusubi. One day while sitting at the newsroom at Radio Gambia in Mile 7, I received a tip off from a family in Trankil whose land was taken away for the creation of Brusubi and given compensation which could not build even a bakubung for them.
I went to the community to interview them and other victims. I also went to SSHFC, Ministry of Lands and Lands Office to interview officials but they refused to talk. I recall traveling to SSHFC head office in Banjul only for them to refer me to the Ministry claiming that was where the compensation was decided. When I got to the Ministry, they in turn referred me to the Lands Office and there they said the director cannot talk about it. Because of my persistence, a report was sent to Radio Gambia to stop me from pursuing the story.
Since Independence, the Government has never built low-cost housing for people to own a home. How then does the Government think that our ordinary citizens would get a roof over their head – such as citizens who are in the informal sectors like taxi drivers, carpenters, welder persons, market women, farmers, and other low-income earners?
In Senegal and all serious governments around the world, they build low-cost high-rise buildings to give a home to all citizens. But in The Gambia, the Government and SSHFC have never done that even though poor workers put money in the corporation. People retire after 40 years of service to the nation with no compound or house of their own. But you will see a young public official with less than 10 years working period get allocated a precious piece of land in the precious layouts created by the Government simply because he is a high ranking official.
Go to Old Yundum to see how first-time National Assembly Members were allocated pieces of land just because one is an elected official. The Ministry of Lands have allocated lands to ministers, permanent secretaries, and their deputies, directors, managers and managing directors. Yet those lands belong to community members who have no home and live in poverty.
Not long ago Hamat Bah took land allocated for the residence of the Chief Justice to hand over to Pres Barrow in total contravention of the law. Meanwhile all of these people have their own plots of land already. This is self-enrichment which is contrary to the Constitution and ethics.
Why should people’s land be taken away and declared a layout or tourism development area only for some official or businessperson to grab it to enrich himself. Stand against the unjust and illegal demolitions.
For The Gambia Our Homeland
