By Alhagie Momodou Morrow Bojang
The land was inherited from our ancestors. This has been our land since the time of our great grandparents. Since farming has dropped a lot in the Kombos, we decided to share the land in 1997. Some continued to farm on their plots while others lent out theirs to other people to farm. There was a portion remaining. One day, two of my brothers (Omar and Ousman Bojang) came to inform me that there were people working on it. When I went to the place to meet the people, they told us that Gibbi Jallow of Gamgas took them there to work. We asked them to give us Gibbi’s number. When I called Gibbi and inquired how he obtained the place, he said the late chief of Kombo North, Eric Tunde Janneh, allocated it to him. When I called Eric, he told me he allocated it to Gibbi Jallow. I put it to him that the land belongs to our family. He said the land he allocated to Gibbi belongs to Cham Kunda (Jamba Kunda).
We then went to report the matter to the then alkalo Alhaji Amadou Hawa Cham who called Eric Tunde and invited him to discuss the matter. At the meeting, the alkalo’s younger brother, Babucarr Sey Cham, told Eric that the land belongs to the Bojang family, not the Cham family. I asked him where he had the power to allocate our land to Gibbi, he responded that he had authority from then president Yahya Jammeh.
From that meeting, I wrote to the then commissioner of Western Division, Mr Lamin Jobarteh. Again, Eric was invited and the commissioner asked me to go home and come back for the feedback the following day. When I went back the following day to get the feedback, the commissioner told me the government had a hand in the matter but, I told him the government had no hand in it.
I then wrote to the Office of the President in 2008 to lodge a complaint. I had no response until after the third letter, when I was invited to the vice president’s office. I went there with my brothers Ousman and Omar Bojang, and Soto Cham, the son of the then alkalo.
After narrating our story to the vice president, she called the director of physical planning, Mr Kebba Ceesay, and told him that the president said he should resolve the matter before he returned from a trip. Ceesay said he could resolve the matter in a week but Vice President Isatou Njie-Saidy gave him two weeks.
After that meeting, Kebba Ceesay mobilised the women leaders of APRC, members of the Women’s Bureau and the Women’s Federation and paid a courtesy call on the vice president and they pleaded with her saying they were all allocated plots at the place and would lose their allocations if the land is returned to the Bojang family. [Allegedly] the vice president was also allocated a plot.
After waiting for two months without hearing from them, I wrote to the Office of the President again and I was informed the matter was now referred to the Ministry of Lands and I should not write to them again for any queries or petitions. The letter was signed by Ebrima Samma Corr on behalf of the secretary general.
One day, we received a letter from Physical Planning director Kebba Ceesay requesting us to meet at the said place to map out the land and make boundaries.
I went along with my brothers Omar and Ousman. We showed the extent of the land to Mr Bunja Janneh of Lands and Survey and the four juniors officers from Planning sent by Kabba Ceesay. At that time Ismaila Sambou was the minister of lands.
Early in 2010, Borry Colley, who was working in the Protocol Office at the Office of the President, helped us to have a meeting with President Jammeh. Jammeh told us that he did not take any land from Salagi and since there were too many complaints about land, he would establish a lands commission and we can report our case there.
This led to the establishment of the Mahoney Commission in 2010 where I testified. We went with Mahoney and other kabilo members to the land to verify the plan and he showed us the masterplan indicating the areas that were affected. He pointed out our boundary with Kebba Kunda and where the so-called layout starts from and ends towards Sebec High School. Kebba Nfamara Darboe asked Mahoney if the area from Sebec towards Sareh Pateh was affected and he responded no. I then asked if the area towards the west was affected and he said no. I asked him if I could get documents for the land, but he said they do not give documents to customary landowners.
While we were waiting for the commission’s report, we witnessed many top government officials, their families, friends and even people living in the US developing our lands. We then reached the conclusion that they were selling our lands under the pretence of allocation.
When we heard that Ismaila Sambou was removed, we visited the new minister’s office. They promised to call us back another day to visit the lands and we went back to the place to survey again with two representatives from the Ministry of Lands, the Department of Physical Planning and the Department of Lands and Survey.
After this, we received a letter through Alkalo Alhaji Kawsu Cham in 2014 to attend a meeting where the minister said they were going to allocate 14 compounds to our kabilo after including our land of 80m x 585m x 135 x 585m. I then told him that 135 people could not share 14 plots. He responded that the compensation was for only our land in the extension not the layout proper. I then asked about the compensation for the layout proper but he said he did not know how the layout proper came about so he was not in any position to make compensation for that and did not want to create any chaos in his ministry.
From that meeting, I called all the members of the kabilo for a meeting. We now concluded at the meeting that our land in the layout proper was not taken by the government since the minister said he knew nothing about it. So each and every one could go and do whatever they wanted with their land. We all started to sell some plots to develop other plots.
We tried during the tenure of Momodou Aki Bajo and Lamin Waa Juwara as ministers to resolve this matter but to no avail until the government changed in 2016.
When Lamin Dibba became the minister of lands, my brothers went to meet him and lodged the complaint to him but he said they were accusing his officers and if he investigates and finds out the claims were false, he would sue them. He did nothing until he was sacked.
After him came Musa Drammeh, whom we also engaged. He promised to investigate the matter but did nothing. We also started going to the media houses to expose them. This did not sit well with them and they instructed the chief and the alkalo to advise us to stop making the allegations. We were invited to the office of the minister for the interior for a meeting attended by the late Lamin Jammeh from Lands and Survey, Essa Camara from Physical Planning, representatives from the ministry, the governor of West Coast Region, the chief of Kombo North, the alkalo of Sukuta, the four kabilo heads, Muhammed Darboe (Denani) and Lamin Darboe from Sukuta Salagi, Momodou Bojang, Lamin Jatta, Lamin Champion Cham, Omar Bojang and Ousman Bojang.
At the meeting, the minister of interior asked if we were compensated and we said no. The minister asked the chief to ask us if the allegations we were making were true and whether we had evidence. We said yes. He said he was going to set up a panel to investigate.
A six-man panel was set up late in 2019 which included: PS Buba Sanyang (MLGLS), CPI Dodou Sanneh (GPF), Inspector Lamin Jammeh (GPF), ASP Abdoulie Sowe (GPF), Inspector Buba Manjang (GPF) and Ousman Bojang representing the Kenebaring Kabilo. After the panel’s investigation, we went to the ministry for a copy of the report but they referred us to the police who told us that their mandate was to investigate and submit the report to the ministry and so they were not in a position to give us a copy.
Sometime in 2020, Physical Planning under the leadership of Mamud Manjang came with a demolition team guided by paramilitary officers to demolish the compound of Ousman Bojang and even took his borehole water pumping machine and some barbed wire roles.
The women of Salagi came to me one day and pleaded for me to give them a portion of our land to build market since they had no market around that area. I told them to wait until I discuss with my family. After the discussions, we agreed to allocate the women a market place. One Pa Matarr Krubally donated D100,000 and Kebba Madi Bojang from Jambur donated two trips of sand and two trips of gravel for the construction of the market. When we started the construction of the market, Commissioner Pateh Jallow, Fofana and Deputy Commissioner Sirreh Jabang of the police came to meet my younger brother Lamin Jatta at the market construction site. Pateh put his mobile phone on loud speaker and called Mamud Manjang who told him the place was part of the allocation for a police station. Lamin Jatta asked Pateh if there was any police station in The Gambia that has premises of more than 50m x 50. Ousman showed them the plot allocated for the police station and pointed out a portion of the land opposite the proposed market which was reserved for a public hospital but allegedly sold to one Borry Jaiteh and Dr Yankuba Gassama by Buba Sanyang then PS at the Ministry of Lands and Kebba Ceesay Director of Physical Planning. Pateh asked us to stop the work and report to his office in Banjulinding the following day. He promised to invite the Physical Planning officers to the meeting.
The next day the elders of the community went to Pateh’s office there were no representatives from both Lands and Physical Planning. Pateh called them but none of them picked his call. We held the meeting without them and Pateh said no police officer will ever escort a demolition team to Salagi since they refused to attend the meeting.
A few days after the meeting with Pateh, we saw three trucks of paramilitary officers deployed to Salagi. We told them we were constructing a market for the women and they were shocked because the information they got was that we were demolishing people’s properties. They went back. After a few days my younger brother informed me there was a team at Salagi demolishing the market and other properties. I instructed my younger brothers not to go there because they might be targeted. Ousman went there to witness the demolition. He saw them demolish his carpentry workshop and damage some of his machines valued at D525,000.
We were able to get a copy of the panel report in 2024, which motivated us to fight more for our land because the report had exposed a lot of misconducts of the government officials.
My question to my fellow Gambians now is:
1. Is it fair to forcefully take the lands of poor citizens and allocate it to the rich and well off people? Don’t we the poor have the right to own plots of land? Is this the democracy we voted for?
Judge for yourself.
