From Jude Owuamanam, Jos
Governor Caleb Mutfwang of Plateau State has vowed that his administration will recover all lands forcibly taken over from Plateau.
He also vowed to stop illegal acquisition of land as well as streamline land administration in the state
To this end, the governor has expressed commitment to implementing the anti-land-grabbing law passed by his predecessor, Senator Simon Lalong.
The governor, who spoke after he received the report of the committee on the resettlement of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and that on land administration, at the Little Rayfield in Jos, stated that individuals cannot simply take over people’s land as if it does not belong to anyone.
He said that occupying another person’s land as though it was no man’s land is uncultured and uncivilised.
He said acquisition of lands by persons or organisations must follow the proper procedures and in conformity with the law of the land.
“Let me remind everyone that the Lalong administration enacted an anti-land-grabbing law. We are looking at how to enforce the laws. People cannot just see a piece of land and occupy it. There is no vacant land anywhere in the world; somebody has a claim on it, and we are not going to allow that to happen.
“If you want land, we will make it easy for you to occupy it, and we will make it easy for you to acquire one, but please don’t just go and occupy land as if it’s no man’s land. It is not right, so I want to assure you that this report will not gather dust on the shelf; we’re going to study it meticulously and make sure that we realign the processes of land administration.
He pointed out that the state government has set up a task force to begin recovery of state assets illegally in people’s possession, and also most of the government property is in the process of documentation.
“The issue of displacement of people on the Plateau has been going on for more than two decades. When I went on air to say that some communities had been taken over, I was castigated as a liar. I’m glad that your report is going to vindicate us. You know we are dealing with statistics. And part of the challenges we’ve had is the unavailability of statistics over the years, and I’m glad that we are taking steps to document things.
“Let people who want to challenge those statistics interrogate them; we’re ready to have them interrogated. If you said that the community we allege was taken over and the name you say is not true, we’ll set up a team and both of us will go there. It is so very easy to verify, you know facts don’t lie, so all we are saying is that the issue of displacement of people has to stop, and number two is that people need to return to their ancestral homes.
“Nobody wants his life fractured and dislocated. The reason we still go back to our villages is because there is an emotional attachment, which is part of the quality of our lives, and when you dislocate people like that, it creates a dysfunction in their system, and we don’t want that.
Speaking earlier, the chairman of the committee, Air Commodore Christopher Pam, said the committee recommended deployment of sufficient military, police and community-based vigilante forces in all the volatile areas.
He said: “We equally recommended construction of 14 new mini-barracks or outposts in strategic locations, which were named in our reports to complement the one already established in Gashish through Kura Falls.
On the land administration in the state, the governor frowned at situations where people occupy and build on government lands without authorisation.
He said: “We’re going to study it meticulously and make sure that we realign the processes of land administration in the state
“Like I told you, we’ve set up a task force to begin recoveries already. And what we’ll be doing is to ensure that your report and some of the recovery of the task force are brought into sync so that we can properly document what belongs to the government.
“If the government wants to give out land, there are procedures. And I’m going to recover a lot of the assets that are lying far away. We will give them to private people. We’re going to make sure that we unlock the value in those lands.
“Some of the estates that the government built are looking like refugee camps. And the government does not have the money. We have to fix them. So, we have to bring in the private sector to see how we can unlock the values in those assets and make sure that it is a win-win situation for the government.