Gov. Godwin Obaseki of Edo, on Tuesday, said that the lands being acquired in the state were targeted at creating employment and improving the livelihoods of the citizenry.
Obaseki stated this in Benin at the 2021 annual public lecture of the Correspondents’ Chapel of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Edo council.
The governor dismissed the belief in some quarters that the state government was using its powers to forcefully take over the lands.
Obaseki, represented by Special Adviser on Media Projects, Crusoe Osagie, pointed out that the reason behind the acquisition of lands was for the overall benefits of the people of the state.
“The exercise of the power as enshrined in the Land Use Act of 1978 was never to enrich me,” he said.
Speaking on the theme: “Menace of Land Grabbing and threat to Public Peace”, Dele Igbinedion, a Benin-based lawyer and human rights activist, called for an amendment to the Act that entrusted land in the hands of governors.
He said that traditional rulers should be allowed to take charge of issuing land documents, as it would significantly address the menace of land grabbing in the state.
“If you need a document for your land, you go to the palace, just like when you need a certificate of occupancy (CofO), you go to the state government.
“In that way, all these miniature documents they are parading will fizzle out and it will take the powers away from the community heads,” he said.
Igbinedion listed government, through the instrument of the Land Use Act, law enforcement agencies, legal system, leaders of the communities as some of the issues threatening remedy to land grabbing.
He faulted the Act, saying that it had created an avenue for state governors to see themselves as landowners.
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Earlier in her address of welcome, Mrs. Nefishetu Yakubu, Chairman of the chapel, said that the topic was apt, amid land-related conflicts, so as to eradicate land grabbing in the state.
Land grabbing, she said, had continued to expose poor people to economic exploitation, untimely death, hunger, violence as well as a threat to investments and real estate development in the state.
“Though a national challenge, the land-related crisis has become endemic in Edo, a situation that led to the disbandment of the various Community Development Associations (CDAs) by the state government.
“Sadly, buying a piece of land and developing the property has become a herculean task, even after the disbandment of the CDAs, due to poor implementation of the relevant laws,” Yakubu said. (NAN)
