Uchendu Eugene Chigbu

Anyone who has a habit of dismissing, and I have met quite a few, the negative impacts of Africa’s colonisation by on-shore and off-shore European settlers, needs a rethink. The only argument worth making is that it should not be all about Europe alone. Centuries of Arabisation (Arabian influence) and Europeanisation (European influence) of Africa, by decades of post-independence Americanisation (American pressure), have all contributed to the Balkanisation (complete distortion) of land uses in Africa. The impact is the disequilibrium created in the landholding structure of African countries to the benefit of both European settlers and native elites. 

I give you some examples of how certain African countries’ landholding structures were overturned by colonialist governments. In East Africa, the British annexed the central highlands of Kenya. These highlands were home to the cool climate and most fertile lands, compared to the rest of the country. They introduced laws that made it possible to acquire land for a lease of nine hundred and ninety-nine years, or in perpetuity. These 1896 to 1915 laws subsequently disposed the native Kikuyu ethnic groups of their ancestral land. This highly unjustified land dispossession by the British colonialists led to the Mau Mau uprising of 1952 to 1960. Other Eastern African countries such as Uganda and Tanzania have their unique experiences of land dispossession by European (and Arabian) colonialists. In Nigeria, women of the Igbo ethnic group owned rights in land until the British colonialists introduced Native Authority laws that declared that women could not own or inherit land in that part of Nigeria. This decision made sense then because, in 19th century Europe, women could not own property as they were (themselves) properties of the men. 

The British could not understand why women should own land in Nigeria. They created an anti-women law requiring that land can only be registered in the name of the men. The emergent post-colonial native elites pounced on this law to justify why women should be submissive to men. After all (as most would argue), ‘it has been our culture.’ Today, women struggle to regain their full right to own and use land in Nigeria. 

Namibia experienced its own horrors of the physical dispossession of land done at the hands of colonialist apartheid administrations, who developed laws to annex the most valuable land portfolios. We have in Namibia today a highly skewed landholding structure that favours mostly European settlers, and has led to a gross state of landlessness of the citizens of native descent. In recognition of the need to reduce unequal access to land in Namibia, the government embraced land reform. The redistributive component of the land reform - the crux of the matter here - is designed to ensure the resettlement of disadvantaged Namibians. A lot has been said and written about how slow the reform in Namibia is going. Conferences have been held concerning the best ways to do it. I think the reform is being undertaken through the appropriate course of action. I also think that, considering the state of unequal land access in Namibia, the speed at which the reform is being implemented is very slow. Furthermore, I think that the slow pace of the reform presents opportunities as much as it poses challenges. It is a challenge because many Namibians are still left without land to call their own (a crucial aspect of addressing historical injustice and poverty alleviation). It is an opportunity because it allows the government and other stakeholders to engage in the best ways to redress land injustices done in the country. I want to proffer some recommendations for fast-tracking the reform responsibly. A ‘responsible land reform’ process is land reform that is responsive to all citizens’ needs in terms of its design, approach and outcomes. When there is a general dissatisfaction about the outcome, then it is not responsible land reform. In Namibia’s case, the slow pace of the reform poses a barrier to the achievement of its objectives. It is making our folks question its design and approach. Drawing from research already done on this matter, several factors may be slowing the reform process. These include delay-generating steps involved in the land acquisition and land allocation (resettlement) processes and legislative concerns. There is also a lack of human capacity (especially assessors and valuers) to conduct land suitability assessments and determine the land prices. A critical impediment is that those expected to offer their farms are not willing to sell.

I recommend the following steps to speed up the reform process. The farm holders should be more open to offering their farms for sale to the government. They should view this as an act of patriotism, and a contribution to addressing the land injustices in the country. Everyone must make a sacrifice for the future of Namibia. The Presently Disadvantaged Namibians (those who were historically marginalised but continue to be marginalised today) have already made their sacrifice by suffering land injustices and poverty till today. In terms of the process, there is a need to pair up activities that the ministerial staff can do simultaneously to help speed up the process. For instance, it would help to introduce a one-stop-shop for all reform activities, instead of leaving applicants to jump from office to office and wait from month to month during the application process. Improvements in information services and boosting public awareness on the processes involved in the reform will help citizens know better the beginning and end of the administrative functions involved in the reform. This way, they can participate, knowing what to do and what not to do.

* Uchendu Eugene Chigbu is an Associate Professor (Land Administration) in the Department of Land and Property Sciences (DLPS) at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST). The views expressed in this article are entirely his, and not that of NUST.