The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Land

  • Land (IV)

    Land (IV)

    The first, but by no means the most egregious crime against humanity committed in the Mississippi delta in the name of cotton was the callous displacement of hundred of thousands of indigenous people from their homelands. This was done by Europeans who believed in what they regarded as their manifest destiny. This is wrapped up in their warped belief that they had a right to all the natural resources on earth, to exploit or develop them in any way they saw fit even if it was at the expense of other non-white human beings who could expect no more than grudging tolerance from their self-appointed masters. As far as they were concerned, it was part of the execution of their manifest destiny to uproot the indigenous people domiciled within the swathe of pristine land which they had allocated to cotton and replace them with hapless black men, women and children who had nothing but a lifetime of brutal labour to contribute to the creation of wealth and creature comfort for their white overlords.

    Cotton or King Cotton as it came to be known in the antebellum states of Southern USA created a hell on earth for the slaves who were brought in to plant, hoe, harvest and bale the raw cotton they had coaxed out of the rich soil of land dedicated to cotton for export. It was brutal, back breaking work from which only death provided a release, mercifully within only a few years and for many of those slaves, not more than two or three. To be ‘sold down the river’ as the saying was in those days was to be condemned to death; death by a thousand indignities perpetrated on millions of absolutely hopeless human beings. Those of them who against all the odds ranged against the enterprise, attempted to flee from their wretched environment were mercilessly hunted down and when apprehended were subjected to extremely savage punishment, to discourage them from any future temptation to steal away and as a deterrent to others who may be harbouring similar temptation in their tortured breast. There was absolutely no consideration for their humanity as they were only rated as being marginally humanly better endowed than the mules with which they worked side by side on the cotton fields. As a compromise, slaves were actually described being only three fifths of a man and recognised as such in the American independence Constitution.

    At first, all the labour associated with cotton production was manual. At the turn of the nineteenth century however, a machine,  the cotton gin was invented and this was the event that took experience on the cotton fields beyond the pits of hell as it multiplied both the discomfiture of the slaves as well as the wealth which accrued to their masters. If cotton was king before, it was now God. When those masters looked at their slaves, they saw nothing but gold coins and worked them even harder. And it was cheaper to go out to replace an overworked and underfed slave who has died in harness than to treat them humanely to prolong their miserable lives. Before the gin was invented, the seeds which were embedded in the cotton bolls had to be manually removed one by one, a maddeningly slow and laborious process which reduced the amount of cotton that could be produced within a given time. With the arrival of the gin, all impediments to cotton production were off and slave owners were transported to a financial heaven. But, there are no roses without thorns and a storm with enough power to blow the ship of cotton right out of the water was, unknown to the slave owners, already brewing. It took a couple of decades to gather strength but when it became fully loaded wreaked a great deal of havoc to a system which many were willing to defend with their lives.

    Read Also: Owners of licenced units of land mined by illegal miners ‘ll lose titles – Alake

    Another crop worthy of mention with regard to slavery was an Old World crop which crossed the Atlantic directly from Africa. A close look at the map of the world will show that a very long time ago Africa was joined to America and there was a continuity between the Sene-gambian region in West Africa and parts of South East United States. The geography of those regions continued on as if there was never a break between them, so conditions on both sides of the ocean were identical to all intents and purposes. On the African side, rice is grown and has been grown over centuries and so, the slaves brought over from the rice growing region simply continued with what they and their ancestors were used to and introduced rice growing practices to America. The transfer was so successful that rice was adopted as a commercial crop and slave plantations devoted to growing rice were soon set up and running. Many parts of the land were however so unhealthy because of their swampy nature that most of the slave owners were absentee landlords who nevertheless, had devised ways and means of supervising their unpaid labourers remotely. This situation led to two consequences. The heavy workload coupled with the unhealthy conditions of the environment led to even greater casualties among the slaves than was usual in other places. And their isolation also meant that many of the social characteristics they brought with them to America were retained. When Joseph Momoh the then president of Sierra Leone visited the USA some thirty years ago, he was welcomed to parts of the American South where Geeche culture which Momoh recognised as being identical with his own Gullah culture back home in Sierra Leone had been kept alive by the descendants of those slaves that had been purposely imported to sustain the rice growing economy of parts of Southern United States.

    Up above the Mason – Dixon line to the north, the Industrial Revolution had arrived and as was the case with sugar, it was soon apparent that industrial capitalist production was the antithesis of slavery and there was no way that the two systems could coexist. In the North, the agrarian culture which had sustained the region for more than two centuries was being replaced by an industrial culture and was attracting immigrants from all over Europe. These immigrants were replacing the slaves who had toiled without any reward on farms belonging to everyone including grandees like George Washington, the acclaimed father of the country as well as Thomas Jefferson, the man responsible for drafting the Construction of the United States. He not only owned slaves but fathered some, those children that he had with Sally Hemming, cousin and slave to his wife. Those children were both his children and his slaves who were only liberated as a result of an agreement between him and Sally before she consented to sharing his bed at the age of only fourteen years. Apart from other considerations, the man was also a paedophile. The stories of Washington  and Jefferson shows how utterly pervasive slavery was in the English colonies of North America since slaves were first landed on American shores in 1619. Any sizeable wealth created in North America over nearly three hundred years owed its origins to the unpaid labour of Africans for whom every inch of land in America was a bitter curse and that famous injunction to buy land even today hardly includes the descendants of those millions of captive Africans for whom that country, so called the land of the brave remains a hill of trials and tribulations.

    Machines came along to free the slaves in the tyranny of the land but down south, King Cotton continued to chain Africans to the soil which they could not lay the claim of ownership to. For them the more the land available, the greater the misery they had to live with and the people in the northern states whose prosperity was threatened by the continuation of slavery became increasingly determined to rid their country of this multiply evil system, not because it was evil but because it limited their economic growth. All the same, it must be said that there were some white people who immersed themselves in the abolitionist cause in an attempt to free the slaves who they recognised as being human beings such as they were themselves. For example, the Quakers, as a group stood against slavery but on second thoughts this may be because they were also great capitalists and it was in their interest to oppose slavery. There also were other whites who stood up against slavery, none more than John Brown who held out against slavery so fiercely that he was hanged after he led nineteen other men to attack and seize weapons from an army post. His intention was for slaves to whom the weapons were to be given were expected to use them in a revolt, the slave owners’ worst  nightmare. I remember singing the ditty

    John Brown’ s body lies a-mouldering in the grave  x3   

    But his soul goes marching on etc in primary school. His was a whole hearted commitment to a cause from which he could never derive any benefit.

    • To be continued
  • Land (III)

    Land (III)

    The sheer area of land available to the kingdom of Spain after their conquest of parts of the American continent and some Caribbean islands including Cuba and Jamaica was truly mind boggling. So much so that it must have paralysed their mind but not so much that they forgot to make Christians of the remnants of the indigenous people within their vast territories. The people were thus doubly deprived of both their land and their spirituality. In any case, land and the spirituality of a people are intertwined so intricately that you cannot separate one from the other. The Spaniards conquered America in very sense of the word but did not seem to have any plans for the systematic exploitation of their new territories beyond tearing up the soil in their ceaseless search for previous metals, especially gold and silver.

    Today, South America is so overwhelmingly Spanish that one may be forgiven for thinking that their pernicious influence was limited to that area but nothing could be further from the truth. Look up north and you will find Spanish place names to confirm that the Spaniards were there and had been there for a very long time. But for the gold rush which in 1849 brought California to the attention of American gold diggers, that portion of the USA may still have remained Spanish. Before then, large portions of Southern USA including Texas, which was to become by far, the largest state of the union was a Spanish colony and even today, Florida on the east coast is more Spanish than American.

    It has to be said that although the Spanish were the first to try to exploit the rich as well as the imagined bounties of the New World, several European countries were not far behind even though the activities of these interlopers were restricted to North America. At first their activities were restricted to the crude exploitation of the abundant natural resources which were available in obvious profusion such as the furs of wild animals, timber and of course, mineral resources which were not so easily accessible.

    Land itself was widely and wildly accessible but land by itself is merely a potential source of wealth. It must be cultivated, which means that a lot of skilful work has to be done if a useful harvest is to be achieved.

    Central America is one of the three places where agricultural science first developed and many crops were first domesticated in that region. Many of these crops; cocoa, maize, tomatoes, potatoes, tobbaco, cassava and various peppers have become staples even in this part of the world leaving us to wonder what our agricultural resources would have been like without the importation of those crops from the New World.

    Crop movement was however not in one direction as some crops crossed the ocean in the opposite direction and with their arrival in the western hemisphere caused such an upheaval that the history of the world was placed on a tragic trajectory, the results of which are still playing out all over the world, especially  in Africa. Chief among these crops was sugar cane, an Old World crop from which sugar is produced. The Portuguese had been growing modest quantities of sugar in the Atlantic islands of Principe and Sao Tome using African slave labour before the Americas were discovered but sugar cane planting really came into its own when this enterprise was transferred across the Atlantic into the Portuguese colony of Brazil. Sugar cane is a labour intensive crop and to sustain it as well as the even more labour intensive production of sugar, millions of Africans were enslaved and transported to Brazil and other places in the New World under the most appalling conditions giving rise to the largest enforced migration of people that the world has ever seen; the legacy of which there is likely to be no end. The Portuguese have the distinction of taking out of Africa more than six million slaves over a period of close to four hundred years, a time during which Africa was in continuous turmoil as slave raiders disrupted peaceful intercourse all over the continent. Close to two centuries after the end of this destructive phenomenon, Africa is still to come to terms with its after-shocks and there are indications that it has not yet ended but only gone underground or has re-emerged in new forms. That in itself is worthy of  separate interrogation. But certainly, the continuing fratricide in many parts of Africa suggests that those pernicious seeds planted in African soil since around 1480 are still alive even if they have lost some of their vigour.

    Read Also: Lagos seeks proactive measures against land degradation

    Over the years since the eighteenth century, Europeans developed a bad and increasing taste for the sweetness of sugar and this meant bad news for Africa and Africans as more and more of them were shipped mainly to Brazil and the Caribbean islands to provide the unpaid labour through which sugar was produced to assuage the raging appetite for sugar in Europe. Again this subject needs a separate discussion and fortunately, the work of Eric Williams, the world renowned historian who led Trinidad and Tobago to independence is available for consultation. His book, Capitalism and slavery which could not find any British publisher for more than sixty years after it was first published in the USA contends or rather, exposes the nexus between capitalism and slavery. Williams insisted that for capitalism to advance to the next level slavery had to go and the emancipation of slaves in the British possessions in the Caribbean islands in 1833 was not as a result of any form of benevolence but was the result of cynical  calculations which enhanced the growth of capitalism. The British stubbornly refused to accept this rebuke but the stand adopted by Williams has been vindicated many times over by contemporary evidence.

    Cotton is another crop which came to define the relationship between Africa and Europe during those dark centuries of slavery. Now cotton, unlike sugar cane was also a New World crop and did not have to cross the sea to find fresh lands to conquer. Quite interestingly however, it has become evident that cotton was first domesticated in an area along the Nile in what is present day Sudan so that going back far enough we find that this crop which came to blight the existence of millions of Africans a few millennia down the line was first introduced to the world by Africans! Much later, the centre of cotton cultivation moved through the Middle East (the word cotton has an Arabic root) to India where it became the most important commodity for many centuries and made India the centre of textile production for several centuries during which time the Indians produced and sold all kinds of textiles to the world. This was at  a time when Indians took textile production to the level of high art and through it made it possible for India to be responsible for roughly 25% of world trade by value. At that time India did not need any items of European manufacture and the Indians were paid for their textile exports with gold and silver extracted from lands in the Americas, proof again that globalisation has a long history which is now only enhanced by modern technology.

    The Indians owed their pre-eminence in the textile trade to their ability to produce different coloured cotton fabrics, a technology they had mastered long before the Europeans had any inkling how to do this. When the Portuguese arrived in India in 1500, they straight away began the business of converting the Indians to Christianity and it was one of such converts who taught their newly acquired Christian brothers the secret of dyeing cotton to produce all the exquisite colours exhibited by Indian textiles. Another example of the use of the name of Jesus as a shortcut to gather political and economic benefits. Clearly,  Christianity has a lot to answer for before the Ecclesiastical courts up in heaven above on that day of judgement with which the  Christians have been threatening the world for more than two millennia.

    Armed with this knowledge,  the Europeans started looking around for the means of producing raw cotton in the vast  New World they had conquered which is how large scale cotton production was established in the Western hemisphere. No sooner was this achieved than the British who had by this time colonised the vast Indian sub-continent began to forcibly dismantle the Indian textiles industry. In doing this, the centre of the global textile industry was transferred to Britain, to the dark satanic mills of Lancashire from where millions of yards of cheap textiles were sent round the  world every year, to undermine the textile industries located anywhere on earth including parts of Africa from where textiles were once exported to other parts of the world.

    As pointed out by Eric Williams, slavery and capitalism found themselves on a collision course almost as soon as the Industrial Revolution was launched around 1750. What the Industrial Revolution brought to the party was the use of machines each of which could do the work of a thousand slaves in less than half the time taken by the slaves to complete the same amount of work. Machines had arrived primarily to take jobs away from unpaid slaves. In other words, slaves were no longer needed and had to be got rid of. There were too many of them to be killed off in any systematic manner and there simply was no way that slaves could be trusted to operate expensive equipment designed to produce vast quantities of trade goods they had no chance in hell of ever acquiring. In essence, they had to go. They had to be set free to fend for themselves as best they could hence the movement towards the emancipation of slaves.

    Many of my contemporaries would at this point remember the pap we were fed in school concerning William Wilberforce, Grenville Sharp and other abolitionists who fought to bring the slave trade to an end in 1807. The stark reality is that those gentlemen may have been pushed by altruism to bring an evil enterprise to an end but they were only successful because the slave trade had become unprofitable and had to be stopped by all means necessary. They were simply pushing against an open door. By this time, Britain had become the largest slave trading nation in the world and had by far, the most powerful navy with which to enforce her decision that Africans must be forced to stay in Africa to produce the raw materials which the  British needed in their dismal factories to produce all those manufactured products which they were hawking all round the world including Africa. Slaves were of course in no position to buy a thing however cheap they were and so, the slave trade had to be abrogated so that Africans could be dragged into the markets created by industrialists in Europe, mainly  Britain in the early stages. But, nothing about human affairs is ever straightforward and the affair with cotton has to be discussed to prove this point.

    In 1803, French territories in North America which when taken together formed more than 20% of present-day USA was sold by Napoleon  Bonaparte, the self crowned Emperor of France to the government of the USA under the presidency of Thomas Jefferson for the grand price of $15 million or three cents to the acre. This has to be the cheapest price for prime estate anywhere in the world as it doubled the size of the USA at that time. The most important thing at least as far as cotton was concerned is that it gave the Americans access to 25 million acres of prime cotton growing land. In other words, fresh land had been created and made available.The only impediment was that these lands were occupied by Indian tribes, the members of which were uprooted from their ancestral lands and forced to march thousands of miles away to strange lands under atrocious conditions on the western shore of the Mississippi river. As many as four thousand souls are estimated to have perished along what has come to be known to history as the Trail of tears.

    • To be continued.
  • Land (II)

    Land (II)

    According to Mark Twain, the principal property of land is that more of it is not being made and this guarantees the increasing value of this commodity. In 1492 however, a lot more land suddenly became available to the Europeans with what they have continued to describe as the discovery of the lands which makes up the American continent.

    In 1453, Constantinople, capital of the Eastern portion of what remained of the once mighty Roman Empire fell to the forces of the then rampant Islamic Ottoman Empire which gave the Turks control of the routes through which spices came to Europe from the East. Following their ascendancy, the Turks quite naturally, blocked the routes along which spices were brought into Europe thereby disrupting the trade of the mainly Christian states around them, making them infinitely poorer and weaker. Without those spices, the use of which they had become accustomed to, Europeans became deprived of the joys of eating since their meals, without the burst of fragrant herbal sunshine from the lands of the rising sun became intolerably unpalatable. From that time on, the race was set to find a reliable route to the spice lands of the East epitomised by the lands of the Indian subcontinent. Since the Turks were sitting astride the lucrative land routes to the spice lands, there was no alternative but to find a sea route. It was obvious that anyone who could command such a route would be sitting on a lot of gold which could then be translated into power.

    Whilst the Portuguese began to explore the possibility of sailing down the West coast of Africa and in doing so go round the Cape of Good Hope which they were sure existed, then sailing up the East African coast to get to India, some half mad Italian now known to history as Christopher Columbus reasoned that since the globe was round he could eventually get to India in the east by sailing west. What he did not know and could not have known was that a whole continent and an ocean stood between Europe and those much coveted spice producing lands. Not surprisingly, he found it hard to find a sponsor for this apparently mad cap idea until he was somehow able to convince the joint husband and wife rulers of Castile and Aragon, the newly amalgamated territories which formed the kingdom of Spain, to sponsor the expedition in the expectation that any new lands discovered in the course of his voyage would be ceded to Spain, or more appropriately to the kingdom of Castile ruled over at the time by Queen Isabella.

    Having secured the necessary funds required for the adventure, three small ships of the caravel class set sail across the Atlantic in a westerly direction from Spain in August 1492 and on October 12 1492, the weary and increasingly agitated mariners sighted land and in doing so, changed the history of the world permanently. Convinced that they had arrived in India, they declared that the people they met on the island on  which they landed were Indians, condemning all the indigenous peoples that lived in the Western hemisphere to be called Indians right down to this day. This is also why we have absurdity of having people, mainly black people referred to as West Indians today.

    Columbus, a common ruffian who immediately enslaved the people who had welcomed him into their home has throughout history been credited with the discovery of the Americas when in actual fact, he barely set foot on that continent on any of his four voyages to the New World. In any case, his voyages opened the eyes of Europeans to the existence of America and in doing so, precipitated the greatest tragedy that has ever been inflicted on the world in the history of man on this planet. The tragedy that unfolded was acute and frequently unbearable but so long lived that five centuries later, it’s grip remains as vicious as it was at the beginning.

    Suddenly, land many times the size of Europe became available for European exploitation and how they exploited it throughout the length and breadth of the American continent. Incidentally, that name is derived from that of another  Italian trader and explorer, Amerigo Vespucci also in Spanish employment. It was he who brought the existence of the American land mass to the attention of the world and forever lends his name to the American continent. Columbus on his own, continued to refer to the New World as the Indies, confirming in his mind his error of having arrived in India by sailing west into the setting sun.

    Over on the other side of the world, the Portuguese were coming upon and quickly colonising African lands all the way till they got to India. The main man in this enterprise was Vasco  da Gama who finally arrived in India with the help of an African pilot on the last leg of his journey from Portugal. As with the discovery of America, the coming of white men to Africa has been by and large, an unmitigated and prolonged disaster.

    The New World to which the West arrived in 1492 was by no means uninhabited. Studies so far suggest that more than twenty thousand years ago, people had crossed over to America from Siberia on the land bridge which at that time had connected the two land masses of Europe and America. The jury is still out on when exactly the crossing over occurred but that date has been pushed back by recent discoveries to more than twenty thousand years. In recent years, there has been debate over the identity of the first people to have crossed the sea into America after the original colonisers had crossed over from Siberia. There are claims that Polynesians successfully landed in America from the Pacific coast before Columbus even thought of venturing across the Atlantic in search of the spice lands. Convincing evidence in strong support of these claims are however not available at this time.

    There is however growing evidence to support the claim that Columbus was not the first European to set foot in the New World. Four centuries before Columbus fetched up in the New World, some Vikins led by Leif Ericsson had landed on the shores of mainland America at a place they called Vinland on account of the grapes which grew abundantly there. Their attempt to settle down there was however not successful because of hostility from the indigenous people of that region and their settlement was quickly abandoned.

    Read Also: Court summons church over land dispute

    Columbus had much better luck because he was not only warmly welcomed, the natives of that area of the New World where he landed were not even familiar with weapons and cut themselves on the knives and swords to which they were introduced by their visitors. The Spaniards responded to their welcome by enslaving some of them and seizing whatever they fancied. The rape of the New World had begun and up till now there is no end in sight to their despoliation. Here was land in such quantity that it turned land starved Europeans into wild animals who could not be satiated. They had been brought up to think that nobody was making any more land but here they were with land stretching before them in all directions and it seemed there was no one to deny them access to the land to do with it whatever it was they pleased. But, there were people, millions of them who like the Aztecs, Mayans and Incas had built dazzling civilisations and had produced beautiful ornaments of jade, silver and gold in such profusion that the Spaniards began to fantasize about the whereabouts of Eldorado, city of gold. It was obvious that the land was fertile, not only in terms of producing sustenance for the body but minerals of incalculable value to please the mind. The sight of these metallic wonders drove the thought of spices out of their minds and they only wanted to lay their hands on the gold.

    The thought of conquest took over the minds of the Spaniards and under the command of men such as Cortes and Pissarro, destroyed indigenous kingdoms and quite systematically looted their treasures and packed them in large galleons for onward transmission into the coffers of the kingdom of Castile. But more heinous than the harvest of gold ornaments was the harvest of souls. Together with their insatiable thirst for gold, the Spaniards inflicted on their reluctant hosts several exotic and deadly diseases to which the people of the New World succumbed like flies. As much as eighty percent of them lost their lives to the infections transmitted to them by the Spaniards and it has now come to be appreciated that the spectacular military success achieved by the Spaniards was due as much to the deaths caused by Spanish arms as by infections like small pox, influenza, measles and malaria which the Spaniards brought with them on their bodies. The indigenous people, never having come in contact with these infections did not have an iota of natural resistance and were overwhelmed. They were replaced by immigrants from Spain who continued to dominate the demography of all the countries in Latin America.

    Apart from the new diseases to which they were exposed, the indigenous population, those of them that survived the plague brought upon them by the strange creatures from Europe were set to back breaking work extracting gold and silver from underground. Under the atrocious conditions of their new life, they were dying out at an alarming rate within a single generation. What was happening in those newly discovered lands was genocide, pure and simple and it is a miracle that any of them survived. It was at this point that attention was switched back across the Atlantic, back to the Old World, to the cradle of human civilization, Africa. The people of Africa were immune to European diseases and were used to hard work. What other solution to the problem of labour shortage could be better than to import Africans into the New World to work the earth and make it profitable for the new conquerors? The only problem embedded in this solution was that the Pope, the de facto ruler of the world at that time had divided the world into two, one half in the New World, excluding the territory now encompassing Brazil, was placed under the rule of the Catholic country of Spain whilst the other half including Africa was ceded to the Catholic kingdom of Portugal. To import human cargo from Africa, the Spaniards had to devise an import license scheme which they called the Asiento. Those who wished to import African slaves into any part of the Spanish territory in America had to pay for the licence to obtain slaves from the Portuguese controlled territories in Africa and export the number of human beings stipulated in their licence. Initially, this system favoured the Portuguese who under the new dispensation owned Africa. But quite soon, the required number of slaves grew to such an enormous number that other European countries notably England, Denmark and Holland quickly developed a slaving industry and together with the Portuguese supplied more than twelve million African slaves to the Americas over the next three hundred years.

    Slaves were imported to work in the land and those that owned them kept them on the land in such close proximity that they were part of the land, with no hope of owning a square metre of land anywhere. Mark Twain was not speaking to any of them when he gave out the advice to buy land. They formed part of the land and could not be separated from it through any form of ownership.

    • To be continued.
  • Land

    Land

    One of the most interesting historical figures I know about is Mark Twain even if that is not his given name as he  was named Samuel Clemens at birth. He however decided to become known as Mark Twain when he took his licence as a river boat pilot on the mighty Mississippi river. He spent two difficult and expensive years studying towards his licence, a certificate he cherished so much that he changed his name to fit this significant proficiency. The Twain in his new name refers to two fathoms, the least depth that would permit the movement of his boat all along the length of the river. Why he chose to be called Mark, I really don’t know except that today Mark Twain sounds grander than Samuel Clemens, I think. Still on the subject of this change of name, it should perhaps not be totally unexpected because river boat pilots of Twain’s era were glamorous figures who not only had a difficult and demanding job but were paid handsomely for doing it. This is also apart from the fact that boat pilots were popular throughout the one thousand, two hundred mile length of the Mississippi river.

    As proud of his accomplishment as he was, Twain spent only a short time on the Mississippi did not exceed two years before the American civil war shut down trade on the river and put an end to steam boating on the Mississippi. Twain left the river and became known for sundry other things including an unfortunate proclivity for making bad investments. This paved his way into insolvency and bankruptcy but he survived in every sense of the word including paying up all his debts even after declaring bankruptcy.

    Before anything else, Mark Twain had embarked on a journalistic affair and later on, whatever else he tried his hand at, he became a writer of such influence and quality that long after that career ended,  he was garlanded with the title of ‘father of American literature’ by no less a personage than William Faulkner, winner of the Nobel prize for literature and an outstanding American writer in his own right. Mark Twain left such a distinguished mark on literature that if you have not yet read any of his books you are advised quite strongly to get up close and personal with Tom Sawyer and the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as soon as you can.

    Read Also; I’m amused seeing those who said Asiwaju had no chance now gallivanting around him – Gbenga Daniel

    Twain was a great writer both of fiction and nonfiction but what stands out in all his writing is his unfailing good humour. There was always something humorous lurking in every page written by Mark Twain and although he died all of one hundred and twenty years ago, his humour is as fresh today as it was when he was alive. It is fitting that to celebrate his literary achievements the Mark Twain prize has been instituted for American comedy. This prize, coveted by all American comedians is held in great reverence and esteem by them in the same way that the Oscar is held by the Hollywood crowd.

    I have chosen to start this conversation with Mark Twain, not because he is the primary subject of discussion but because I want to borrow one of his witticisms to anchor my musings about land. This quote is short and to the point.

    ‘Buy land. They are not making it any more.’

    This is very good advice from a man who had the unfortunate tendency of making a series of patently unsound financial investments. From this point of view, this is a prime example of doing what I say, not what I do. This may be so, but in this case, there is no arguing with the soundness of this advice which is anchored on truth.

    Land, even in these days of airy fairy money making schemes is the solid anchor to wealth and this is because there is nothing you want to build that will not require the acquisition of some portion of land and because nobody is making more land, its value can only go up and continue to go up until man is able to colonise some faraway planet and in doing so, make a lot more land available. In the present however, as the value of land goes up the scramble for it also goes up and up until you get to the Japanese situation in which it is said that no matter what you build on a piece of land in that country, the value of that structure will always be less than the value of the land on which it is standing. That may be an extreme example but that is the direction in which the world is going. After all, they have stopped making more land. And that is a big problem, one that defies human ingenuity. The problem of land is a universal one, bigger in certain parts than others but a problem everywhere.

    It may be very difficult for most people reading this to conceive the reality which man faced before the fortuitous discovery of the science of agriculture some ten thousand years ago. This discovery was made simultaneously in three parts of the world; the aptly named fertile crescent in the Middle East as well as parts of Northern China and Central America. This discovery was to tie down human populations to certain  areas where they could settle down to grow and harvest their crops. Before then, man, like most other animals had no option but move from place to place in small bands gathering food, mainly vegetables, nuts, fruits and the occasion small animal when they were lucky.

    They are now referred to as hunters and gatherers but in reality, they did a lot more gathering than hunting. After all, the animals which they hunted were themselves adept hunters and were better equipped for much of that time to prey on humans rather than the other way round.

    The number of people alive in the pre-agricultural world did not exceed a few million souls and they could roam around the world not necessarily at their at their pleasure, but at least not having to worry about the availability of land. After all, they planted no crops, erected no shelters and therefore could not in their wildest imagination entertain the thought of land hunger or shortage. The ownership of land was definitely not one for them  to even think about.

    The arrival of agricultural practice opened all eyes to the value that could be attached to land, any land at all because of its potential to yield crops which could be used to sustain life. With a steady supply of food available, world population began to increase rapidly laying the ground for arable land to increase in value. The amount of land available did not increase as no new land appeared on the market. Nobody was making any more land on which crops could be grown. Even from very early on, land was perceived to be a resource, actually the ultimate resource, the completion for land in its own right became acute, depending on how much land was available. Before long, it was realised that on the surface land was just that, a tract of dirt on which crops could be raised but in reality some portions of land were richer than other parts and those tracts of land which supported the growth of crops were premium and much sought after. People, at least in certain parts of the world, notably in Europe, Asia and the Middle East settled on choice portions of land and were able to generate greater food surpluses than their less able or unfortunate neighbours leading to the development of class distinctions and the separation of rich from poor, a separation which grew ever wider until some people had too much and most others had little or nothing. Under such circumstances the poor people had nothing but the power of their muscles and this they put to use on the portions of land which belonged to the lord in his castle in exchange for some reward which never rose above subsistence level. In doing this, they generated even more wealth for their employers causing class differences to widen further.

    The importance of arable land to human civilization is shown by historical experience in Egypt where no new land was formed but available land was renewed every year as the River Nile flooded it’s banks leaving thick deposits of rich soil on which a stupendous surplus of food could be produced. It is no coincidence that perhaps the greatest civilisation up till now that the world has seen, developed and flourished furiously along the banks of the Nile.

    The value that has come to be attached to land has led to the greatest crimes against humanity in many parts of the world. The original crime in this respect was the initiation of human classification which led to a situation in which men who had little or at least a restricted access to land became servants of even slaves to other men whose only distinction was that they had access to some land. The consequences of such a situation still colours human relations and with our planet needing to supply the increasing populations whose individual needs are becoming increasingly sophisticated, the problem of inequality is not only huge but growing exponentially with expanding human populations.

    As part of the growth of civilisation, mankind soon realised that the importance of land went deeper than simply growing crops. Under the visible surface of the earth, there were many useful commodities which enhanced the growth of civilisation mainly because of their utilitarian value; salt, iron ore, copper, coal, copper and tin, to mention the most common. In addition there were other minerals such as gold, silver and precious stones which because of their intrinsic properties and rarity could be used as a store of values which translated as wealth and could be used as payment for all kinds of services from people who had such services to offer. The owners of portions of land harbouring such precious minerals had the wherewithal to buy other men and used them for whatever took their fancy. Under our feet, at least in parts of Nigeria, what lie quiescent are natural gas and crude oil which have been there for millions of years until their presence was discovered nearly seventy years ago. The consequences of the discovery and subsequent exploitation of these hydrocarbon resources have determined the trajectory of the growth or the lack of it of Nigeria. More than that it has helped to create a new Nigeria in which a comfortable future cannot be guaranteed. In the meantime, a considerable portion of the lands surrounding the oil fields have been put out of commission in respect of the primary function of land, that is the production of crops. This means that not only is it that new land is not being made but some of the available land has been taken off the market by the gross pollution which accompanied the exploitation of the oil fields thereby raising the value of any available land in that region. The advice here must be, ‘don’t sell your land. People are reducing the amount of available land.’ Definitely not as punchy as the original Twain quote but it will have to do. At least for now.

    ● To be continued.

  • Many stories from the land

    Many stories from the land

    Title: The Moon Child and Other Stories

    Author: Ekan Essien

    Publishers: Siene Books, Uyo

    Reviewer: Edozie Udeze

    The act of story-telling is a craft. It is a gift to man by the unseen powers from above. For someone to be a good story-teller, he has to first of all take time to master the rudiments and the secret of making a good story practically out of nothing. For a good story-teller, every event, all social religious and cultural matters and other norms are good story materials. This is what Akan Essien has succeeded in doing in this short stories collection titled The Moon Child and Other Stories. He took his time to grasp and master the event in and around him. The village setting is clear; the people who inhabit his entire vicinity are all represented. In all these, he clearly, somewhat carefully sieved through the events to produce six amazing stories. No doubt, these stories hit you as a reader. The moment you pick the book to read, you feel the suspense all over.

    His stories are just topical. Essien ensured the themes reflect a society, a Nigerian society in the throes, in the bowel of social – political and economic turbulence. The stories come as eye-openers, dwelling on vast matters that touch the heart. The author shows that the beauty of story-telling lies in telling the stories and telling them well. Infused with instructive proverbs and jokes and innuendoes here and there, the metaphorical nuances of the stories penetrate like a desert breeze that seeps and sooths. The opening story entitled Adventure is the story that truly tests Essien’s mastery of the craft. In it, he carefully relates some of the well-known paths of teenage odysseys. It is a story of most young people as they foray into the world of life.

    The Adventure is the story of teenage brevity and rascality. It is a story of poverty intermingled with riches in which the children of the well-to-do and children of the poor co-inhabit. It is a story of childish love, adventure and fantasy occasioned by exposition to the ideals of life. See, on page 3, the author lays it bare thus: “My friends that I talked about earlier came from rich homes…” so the yawning comparison and gap between the rich and the poor predominate in the school in this story of adventure where love and jealousy exist.

    In one of the most inspiring stories entitled The Strange Passenger, Essien situates one of the most instructive accounts of the times. A story where a graduate ends up being an Okada rider/operator. It is the story of the moment, this moment of sports betting, of fake prophets and men of God duping people here and there, of young people living fast, rudderless life in all facets. After several obnoxious lifestyles and the quest to make ends meet, this young graduate Okada rider encounters a female ghost passenger and the matter ends abruptly. Hear this on page 62, “I rode the bike to a stop and turned around to get my money. I met an empty seat; there was no lady in sight. I slumped the bike down and tore through the street like a freshly deranged mind”.  And so both the Okada business and all other issues pertaining to it end in a jiffy.

     Flown Away is also an intriguing tale well-crafted to situate the world of humans and the spirit of the living dead. His name is Pa Itiaba, a man that is a man. Though strange and near ubiquitous in all manner of razzmatazz, Pa Itiaba appears from nowhere in this setting, building his own house, and deciding to live the life of a hermit. The author describes him as “He was a man not a soul cared to ask where he came from. The people were afraid of his reaction if such courtesy was done. The man neither talked to nor answered anybody”, page 63. This happened at Ikot Eka where a sacred forest existed. You can see that apart from being a master story-teller, Essien is very observant with an ear to the ground. He is a man at home with his people, with his immediate surroundings. These stories can only be well-told by a writer who observes critically. And that is why he can assign so much awfulness to vultures, the evil birds that dared to take away the coffin of Pa Itiaba of Ikot Eka.

    In The Red Cap, he tells a rather pathetic story of Edoka, a man caught between his love for selfishness and eagerness to be made a red cap chief and also the anxiety to have a son to succeed him. He has many female children from a number of wives. But driven by this medley of frustrations and worries, Edoka becomes a loner, a one man riot squad, so to speak. He ends up not getting the red cap chieftaincy title and a son he so desired. This is a story of hopes dashed and dreams aborted. On page 47, Essien clears the air about Edoka ended up. “Chief Edoka quickly removed the wrapper that was used to cover the baby. He could not wait to see the baby boy. As the genitals of the baby stared back at him, he collapsed. It was a female child”. Yes, the numerous women in his life including his first daughter Ekaete have taken him for a ride. And so he ends up disastrously. There are other stories including the menace of kidnapping, all tailored to teach, to instruct. In all, Essien has shown that the essence of life is to live to learn, to adapt and to love and share.

  • Family to Sanwo-Olu: stop land grabber terrorising us

    Family to Sanwo-Olu: stop land grabber terrorising us

    • ‘They are lairs, court judgment is in my favour’

    The Olubimi/Olubunmi, Fagbayi, Akapo, and Agbedeyi families of Alimosho, Lagos State, have appealed to the government to rescue them from an alleged land grabber, Abiodun Ejigbadero, terrorising land occupants in Alimosho, Orile Agege and its environs.  

    At a joint stakeholders meeting, Baale of Oki kingdom, Chief Adedayo Oki, accused Ejigbadero of parading himself as a land owner in the community, while tormenting and threatening land occupants.

    Oki urged the government to intervene by stopping the accused from further harassing the community.

    He said: “I am appealing to the government to rescue us. We want the government’s intervention so that everything will be fine and people in the community can live fine.”

    “The late Jimoh Ejigbadero, the accused’s father, claimed to have bought all the land, about 1,060 acres, from our father at N120,000 in 1975 because during those years, pounds and shillings were the currency of exchange. But it is all lies.”

    Baale of Fapohunda Community, Chief Olagoke Bakare, stressed the difficulties residents face due to Ejigbadero’s antics.

    According to him, he’s a victim of Ejigbadero’s threats and confrontations

    He added: “We have a court case with him and he was arraigned for forgery, impersonation and false pretence. But he has people around him and an unidentified policeman working with him. Recently he demolished a building of 18 rooms and a big hall without due process. There is a judgment on the building.

    “We reported the case to the State CID in Abuja but he was absent on the day we were summoned. But someone called to tell him that if he didn’t show up, they will come for him. We were at the airport when we heard he came and was bragging that nothing will happen.”

    General Secretary of Olubunmi family, Akinleye Abiodun, emphasised that the late Ejigbadero was also a land grabber. He urged tenants and occupants to report further cases of threats of victimisation to the police or the palace of Oba of Orile Agege.

    Read Also: Keyamo to Aviation CEOs: resign if you will be involved in corruption

    “This land grabber will invade any house under renovation and begin to paint the walls, saying the land belongs to his late father, Jimoh Ejigbadero. He did a document addressing himself as Abiodun Ishola Akapo, claiming to be member of this family, but we are not related to him,” he said.

    Abiodun also explained that a petition has been written against Ejigbadero through the Deputy Inspector-General of Police  in charge of Zone 2, and it was discovered the document is fake.

    But Ejigbadero denied the allegations. He insisted his late father bought the land  about 50 years ago and got all documents to prove ownership. He presented documents to back up his claims.

    He said: “Their claims are lies. In fact, they sold the land twice. My late father bought it from their parents over 50 years ago and got all documents. This can be verified from lands registry, Alausa…’’

    “I have over 10 judgments against them so they should approach the courts if they have a case. Enough of them accusing me wrongly.”

  • Family files contempt charge over Alagbado land

    Family files contempt charge over Alagbado land

    • ‘It’s an abuse of court process’

    A claimant, Mr Afolabi Fatusi, has initiated contempt proceedings against Daar Communications Plc, owners of AIT/Raypower, over an alleged failure to deliver possession of his family land in Alagbado.

    He filed Form 49 on December 14 – a notice to show cause why the order of attachment should not be made.

     Fatusi accused the company of failing to deliver possession of the property following High Court judgments.

     This was after he filed Form 48 – Notice of consequence of dsobedience to order of court – against the company and some of its directors on October 17.

    The alleged contemnors are Daar Communications, Mrs Oluwatosin Dokpesi and Mr. Tony Akiotu.

     They were accused of disobeying verdicts which ceded the parcel of land where the company is located to Mr. Julius Olanrewaju and Madam Adefiola Fatusi.

     The claimants secured one of the judgments before Justice O. Kayode-Ogunmekan on February 22, 2013, against Hassan Bello, Semiu Alanis, Sumoni Akintola and Persons Unknown, who had also claimed ownership of the land, following which possession was taken.

    Read Also: Ize-Iyamu joins race in APC

     The claimants, now represented by their son, Fatusi, claimed that after the execution of judgment on November 15, 2013, and delivery of the property to the claimants, “the judgment debtors and their assigns went back to the property in breach of the express order of the court”.

     They added in an affidavit: “In spite of the report of the Land Grabbers Committee and judgments of the court, the contemnors continued in defiance of the express orders.”

     However, the management of Daar Communications prayed the court to set aside the service of the Forms 48 on the ground that they were not parties to the cases nor were they joined in any of them.

     The company said since it had no interest in any of the suits, the claimant’s action “constitutes a veritable abuse of the processes of this honourable court.”

    Daar Communications added that since execution has been levied by the judgment creditors, “the judgments being paraded by the claimant have become spent”.

    The case has been adjourned till January 17 for a hearing.

  • Monarch admonishes land developers

    Monarch admonishes land developers

    • By Ibrahim Yusuf

    The newly installed monarch of Ologo Ogogoro town in Iwerekun Ibeju-Lekki Local Government Area of Lagos, HRM Oba Mufutau Adewunmi Olanrewaju (Idogun Tunwase I Ologunfayo of Ogunfayo) has requested the need for old and prospective land owners within his domain to come and regularise their land titles, just as he warned land speculators lurking around the community.

    The monarch, who addressed newsmen in his palace at the weekend, said the need for the land owners to come forward to get their land documents verified has become inevitable in order to ensure peaceful and harmonious coexistence between natives and non-natives within the community.

    “It has come to my notice that there are undisclosed numbers of landed properties within and around our community here in Ologo Ogogoro kingdom that have been lying fallow ever since because the owners failed to come and develop them. The result is that criminal elements use these places as hideouts to carry out all forms of criminality and other nefarious activities thereby endangering the lives of other law-abiding citizens of the community.

    “Most of these places are now overgrown with weeds. We don’t want to see bushes or undeveloped lands in our midst anymore,” he stressed.

    Read Also: Gov joins military operation to rescue abducted civilian

    “I have the mandate of the respective family heads in this domain to request that all existing and prospective land owners need to come forward with the proof of ownership of their land titles for proper verification and authentication. We are giving all the concerned parties between now and December 15, 2023 to come forward to regularise their land documents, “he reiterated.

    “It is so bad that some of the owners of these lands have held these titles for between 20 to 10 years without doing anything concrete on the lands. This is most unfortunate because they are by so doing denying both the community and its people the benefits of socioeconomic growth and development that can come to these areas.”

    “Under my reign, I want peace and development for our ancestral land and we are ready to do everything humanly possible to achieve that objective,” he said.

    “I urge the land owners to comply. Anyone who fails to come forward to my palace for this verification exercise should be ready to bear the consequences thereafter,” he warned.

    The royal father who also seized the occasion to express his profound gratitude to heads of other adjoining towns and villages within Ibeju-Lekki environs who came for the traditional installation exercise, expressed optimism that with the cooperation of all and sundry, the various communities within Ibeju-Lekki will experience socioeconomic development that would make it the envy of other people and places.

    “I have no doubt at all in my mind that with the full cooperation and support of everybody including the young and old amongst us men, women and our sons and daughters outside the community have a major role to play in our quest to raise the bar of socioeconomic growth and development of our ancestral land. We can achieve more if we work together. I need your prayers and most especially your cooperation to lift Ologo Ogogoro kingdom to greater heights and most enviable position,” he pleaded.

  • Lagos enhances land administration process

    Lagos enhances land administration process

    As part of the strategy to enhance seamless and integrated land administration processes, the Lagos State Government has introduced the ‘Aumentum’ Land Administration – Automation process.

     The Permanent Secretary, Lands Bureau, Mr. Kamar Olowoshago, said this in a statement.

    Olowoshago explained that the Aumentum Solution as a digitized process, allows government to automate Land record management and facilitates the registration of property transactions in a more chronological, controlled and transparent manner.

    He pointed out that the digital invention simplifies the way the state government manages Land information and Property tax revenue.

    According to the Permanent Secretary, “the State Government has joined the league of global pacesetters  by  complying  with  a technology-

    driven Land administration process.”

     He affirmed that by deploying the Aumentum Land Administration solution as a reliable tool to customize and streamline its business workflow process,  the state is assured of higher productivity, enhanced revenue generation, security of documents, improved and smarter customer-service delivery.

    Stating that the Bureau has entrenched a culture of excellence with prompt technology-driven and efficient customer-centric service delivery, the Permanent Secretary acknowledged that ‘Land Administration in Lagos State has transversed over several decades and stages in its journey towards integrating technology that is all encompassing and sustainable.”

    He traced the trajectory from the implementation of the Electronic Document Management System (EDMS) in 2013 to the electronic Certificate of occupancy in 2014 and then to the integrated Land Administration- Automation process introduced in 2019. He noted that land administration in the state has evolved to provide unsurmountable standard in land management across the nation.

     He lauded the administration of Babajide Sanwo Olu for taking bold steps in this regard.

    “ Thanks to Mr. Governor, our processes  which were cumbersome and time consuming before the automation have now become more efficient and cost effective.

    “Formerly, directorates operated in silos  with operation of the open filling system which exposed documents to insecurity, forgery and other forms of  mismanagement,” he said. 

    Olowoshago further explained that  the transformation involves the  movement of files from the three main directorate repositories to the digitization project campus, preliminary sorting of files into government schemes and private properties, sorting of private property file into transaction files across 20 local government areas of the state, merging of ‘root title’ processing files with subsequent transaction as encumbered and unbinding of Titles and Deeds from registered volumes for chronological sorting.

    Other aspects of the process, he said, includes merging of titles with subsequent Deeds and pre-requisite merged files, encapsulated into property folders as authenticated by the Registrar of Titles, dispatch of authenticated property folders to Technical partners for Digitization and automation; and receipt of digitized, concluded property folders for archival in designated locations.

    Read Also: Lagos Assembly confirms three Sanwo-Olu’s nominees

    He added that to speed up the digitisation process, the Bureau engaged about a hundred ad-hoc Staff to discharge the enormous assignment of transforming manual documents which initially existed in disjointed silos into digital forms.

     “These team of highly talented and skilled youths have over time also assisted in actualizing the hybrid GO-LIVE to meet the dire need of our esteemed customers on stipulated timelines,” he said .

    Olowoshago  said that the herculean transformation of manual paper documentation and archival of records has over the period under review transited and metamorphosed into a digital workflow machine, encapsulating and streamlining Property documents for improved customer-service delivery experience and enhanced revenue generation.

    Appraising the relevance of adopting ‘Aumentum’ to Land Administration, the Permanent Secretary  further said that the new automation system which provides a powerful solution that can be  easily customized for any land- related business process has simultaneously transformed over 250 parcels of land in Lagos Metropolis with historical transactional records from paper forms through an herculean manual process to digital form, adding that the transaction turn-around time was shortened thereby reducing operational costs.

    Pointing  out some key features of the Automated business process, Olowoshago stated that the service which  can be accessed via: landonline.lagos.gov.ng is designed to provide a secure shopping cart experience with data analysis that will give customers opportunity to track application progress, make  comments and receive immediate feedbacks on complaints.

    “The introduction of the digital automated process has also encouraged collaboration and content- sharing within Government Agencies by the creation of a One-Stop-Shop enquiry to facilitate unhindered access and an end-to-end- Land Administration platform that is sustainable and productive thereby reducing the silos of information existing across Ministries, Departments and Agencies,” he said.

    While confirming that the technological leap is in compliance with Government’s Agenda of “Making Lagos a 21st Century Economy” the Permanent Secretary, emphasized that the new system will support the compartmentalisation of the Bureau business processes and reduce human interface.

    Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

  • Adeleke vows to revoke 33-acre govt land

    Adeleke vows to revoke 33-acre govt land

    Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke has vowed to revoke the state government land designated for trade fair, which was allegedly ceded to a private company by former Governor Rauf Aregbesola. 

    The governor, represented by Deputy Governor Kola Adewusi at the 2023 Osun Trade Fair at Aje International Market, Osogbo, spoke yesterday while responding to the allegations raised by President of Osun Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (OSUCCIMA), Dr. Olu Olujide. 

    In his address, Olujide alleged that “the land covering about 33 acres was donated by the late brother of the governor, Isiaka Adeleke, to OSUCCIMA, for trade fair and other activities of OSUCCIMA. The government of Aregbesola transferred the ownership of the land to a private company. I will like to call your attention to the ownership of this compound called Aje International Market.

    Read Also: Port-Harcourt-Maiduguri rail project to be completed, operational soon – Minister

    “The government of Osun State transferred the ownership of the land to a private company. All the structures erected on the land by industrialists and local government councils were demolished. Only that of Odua Investment Company was left.” 

    He appealed to the government to help them do something on the purported land matter. 

    Responding to Olujide, Adewusi  expressed disappointment about the allegation against the former governor and directed the chambers to make the claim formal, promising that all the wrongs would be corrected.