LAND OWNERSHIP:

SECTION 260(1)” LAND OWNERSHIP- ALL LAND IN THE GAMBIA BELONGS TO THE PEOPLE OF THE GAMBIA COLLECTIVELY AS A NATION, AS COMMUNITY AND AS INDIVIDUALS. ” 

This provision of the new draft constitution is obnoxious and will deprive families in rural Gambia of their land inherited from ancestors before them. 

The CRC deliberately avoided using the term ‘state-own’ to prevaricate this so that the average Gambian will not understand. 

But in reality, ‘land belongs to the people of The Gambia collectively’ is basically another way of saying land is state-owned. It’s just like saying GAMTEL is collectively owned by the people of The Gambia, which is just anotherway of saying GAMTEL is state-owned.

Yes, the same provision went on to add ‘…as a community and individuals’, but these are not the foundation of the land tenure system envisaged and are only there to acknowledge, implicitly, the fact that The Gambia comprises of communities and individuals and that land could also be owned by a community and individuals if granted to them by the state or they happened to purchase it in some way. It does not, in any way or form, protect your traditional family land from expropriation.

Our family/community lands are not public corporations and have been owned by us well before the state of The Gambia was founded in 1888. 

They must remain ours unless we choose to sell to a willing buyer for value, or there is a need for us to relinquish part of it for public use subject to compensation.

This provision will have to be amended or we must reject this draft constitution to protect ourselves from a mafia driven land expropriation which will dispossess the entire rural Gambia of their traditional family lands. It is a grotesque hoodwink which we must defeat.

Suntu S. Daffeh 

UK