Land Management: Beware Of Dubious Traditional Rulers!

It is an age-old malaise with varying impact, depending on individuals and the communities involved. Traditional rulers living on what is meant for their communities, especially land. Although over the years, they have also been known to serve their communities and as custodians of their culture, traditional chiefs in certain parts of the country are a bulwark against odds that their people may face from outsiders. From slave trade to colonial and even post-colonial years, stories abound of how village heads constituted barriers against any attacks on their local populations. And the leaders equally served as symbols of protection to their communities. Such leaders ensured that nothing penetrated their land that could jeopardise peace and tranquillity. But the times and circumstances have been changing the narratives in many ways.      
With the creation of modern states, traditional leaders have come to be qualified as auxiliaries of the administration. Meaning they are relays. Presenting to their people what the State wants and ensuring that their people are law -abiding. Unfortunately, that has often given room for unwarranted complicity with some government officials and administrators. This has been evident in most conflict resolutions that require both parties to intervene. Land issues have been some of the most glaring in which traditional leaders have been caught in dubious acts. Since all land belongs to the State, some traditional leaders have often connived with administrative officials to deprive their populations of land by abusively granting titles deeds in their communities for personal use.     
In several outings across the country, Territorial Administration boss has been heard admonishing local rulers against placing themselves in conflictual paths with their people, especially over land. Apart from interference from local administrative authorities, the traditional rulers who excel in land grabbing often do so to make quick cash from their elite and other influential tycoons that might appear with flashy banknotes. In such cases, it is unlikely that the interests of the local population will be taken into consideration by a traditional ruler who is guided mostly by the quest for money.     
With the alarm bell sounded on 14 February, 2024 by the Minister of Territorial Administration calling on regional Governors, Divisional and Subdivisional Officers to guard against the delivery of title deeds in the name of traditional rulers, it sends home the message that the situation keeps growing worse by the day. There are even those who go as far as doing clearance sale even on sacred forests that have been the pride and holy ground for the people over the years. Once a leader is motivated by the bad spirit of get-rich-quick or pushed by the desire for short-term gains, the tendency is that such a leader has little or no scruples for the wellbeing of his community.     
However, in traditional African societies, land ownership was always subject to collective concertation by the traditional councils in case of litigation. But in modern days, the situation has changed with large-scale land demands for plantation agriculture, mining, timber exploitation, conservation, etc. The quantity of land required for such purposes has often resulted in major distortions in rural livelihoods and social relationships in community life. Complexities in land ownership in Cameroon and the fact that the law does not recognise the existing customary systems of land ownership and the influx of investors both foreign and locals in need of big surface areas, have made matters more challenging. Those who question the present land policy point to Ordinance N° 74 -1 of 6 July 1974 which states that all “untitled” land is considered as national land legally controlled and managed by government. Under such circumstance, local communities have often been in a dilemma in situations where they are dispossessed by investors who acquire land from the state without leaving the people with what to survive on. The people end up either being absorbed in the workforce of the companies or forced to embrace agonising exodus to major cities and towns where they liv...