Karamajiji or the "Hi" way

I am super super furious with Nigeria and the progress we have made so far. It’s been ages since I set my mind on this site but for some obvious reasons, agents in both public and private sectors are frustrating my efforts.

Since zoning down on the Karamajiji site and locating the holder of the title deeds, I made frantic efforts to formally verify the authenticity of lands deeds. By contacting AGEIS – The Abuja Geographical Information System office in FCDA, where I was promptly refereed to the Parks & Recreational Department - the local authority that originally issued the allocation paper. To my utter surprise, the Parks and Recreational Department has bluntly refused to formally respond to my Lawyers papers.

Things came to a head this week when I called a friend and staff of the FCDA (wants to remain anonymous), who told me that nobody will reply my letter, that I should go ahead and take the risk of paying for a land I am not sure of. Just do a verbal search and do what you want. In fact I was told that only CBN and in some cases, NNPC that acknowledge or respond to formal requests amongst all Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies. Basic issue of Correspondence that should be life-line that government and private institutions live on is fractured and rendered useless. This is in spite of the freedom of information act signed into law in Nigeria. By unwittingly frustrating private initiatives such as this, Government has dealt a decisive blow on its job creation agenda. It is not the big oil and gas enterprises or multinationals that provide jobs, its also not the laudable (and usually unfeasible) projects that Governments executes, but the volume of private and small and medium businesses that come to fruition that ultimately provide the needed jobs. Only two hundred “mum and pop” shops that employ or engage ten youths alone will covered two thousand individual lives, and countless dependents. El’ Uno extreme plans to engage over thirty staff on a fulltime basis and perhaps an additional twenty as the business expands. Every other passing day without progress is additional delay in empowering these people. I have contemplated on what I must do to speed things up, but I am at a loss as to where to start. If Government institutions are nonfunctional, what is to expect from the masses?

We have opened discussion with the Danlami and Abu, the Gwari farmers on the property. We have propositioned them on our intention to create a recreational center over their farm and advised them on the need to remove their crops or farm elsewhere as they might not harvest them before the earth works commence. We have talked about compensation and all the "Matching Ground" fees to be paid despite the fact that they have been previously compensated by the Government when the land was annexed. To my utter amazement, the duo demanded a N4,000,000 (four million Naira) compensation for their crops.

Ever wondered where the Cashew plantations around Abuja come from? Ever wondered why Cashew? Well to summarize a long story, Gwari indigenes were advised to plant cash crops on every available square meter as a way to get money from would-be owners while Government settled their community leaders. While most cash crops would require a considerable tending, Cashew and Melina can thrive without any form of care hence their wide spared use all around Nigeria. While cashew produces edible fruits, Danlami and Abu can not actually provide an proof that they export or sell their produce – we can only speculate that the crops where put in the ground as traps for easy gains.

So I hear that on the small piece of land (4.2 hectares), I have 488 Cashew Trees, 36 Mango trees, 142 Melina trees, 133 Banana trees, 6 Guava trees, 5 palm trees and one Pawpaw tree. With a proposed compensation fee of N4,000,000 (four million naira) I have an average of N4,938.00 (Four thousand nine hundred and thirty eight naira) for each plant. A cursory look around the plot reveals that the stream takes up about a quarter of the space and the remaining space is largely rocky outcrop. There is virtually no way for 810 tress to take root. But how do I get Danlami and Abu to understand that? How do I tell them that I am a lone business man with little means? Their body language at all our meetings suggests that they have always looked forward to this day and a lot is expected of whoever comes to take up the place. Truth be told, he may never had benefited from the earlier Government compensation efforts on the land his forefathers held over centuries. We are not oblivious of these facts, Dog -eat Dog, survival of the fittest rat race we call life. To image that I am just a Pawn in this chess board and be hold another Pawn. So we are cautious to choose our words right and explore all known options to an amicable end.

Truly, I am thoroughly pissed by the way Nigeria is run, and how it has forced our people to exploit each other. Well I guess that’s the fundamental of a capitalist society. Life goes on.