TRAGEDY struck last month when Tajudeen
Disu, the Managing Director of the Lekki Free Trade Zone in Lagos, was
killed during a protest by a community over the acquisition of its land.
The deceased had gone to calm frayed nerves, only to be entombed in the
vortex of the communal rage through a fatal bullet shot. This disaster
is a big threat to economic development, not only in the state, but in
the entire country. The incident once more evokes the nagging question
of land ownership or control under such special circumstance. Government
should seize the moment to resolve the rift and assert its authority.
At issue is the land acquired for the
Dangote Refinery Complex and Fertiliser Company under the LFTZ business
initiative. The account of how the deceased died is not tidy. While the
police have arraigned 17 villagers in connection with Disu’s death, the
Okunraye community, however, claims that it was a stray bullet from the
indiscriminate shooting by the police, in an attempt to quell the riot
that killed him. This conundrum demands diligent
investigation in order
not to create an escape route for the perpetrators.
The Lagos State Government set up the
LFTZ to stimulate its economy, an economic development paradigm China,
India, Brazil and Russia, among others, have exploited maximally to
shore up their economies. Therefore, under the scheme, land was acquired
by the state government, leveraging the Land Use Act, and not by the
individual companies investing in the free trade zone. Since the
Okunraye village rage had been simmering before Disu met his doom, it
beggars belief that the state government did not step in to nip it in
the bud.
However, it is a known fact that
government does not acquire land for public interest without paying
necessary compensation to any community so affected. The Commissioner
for Commerce and Industry, Olusola Oworu, under Governor Babatunde
Fashola’s administration, created the impression in April that this was
done, as she said N785 million was paid to communities in Parcel A in
2009, while 50 per cent was given to Yegunda and Abombti communities in
Parcel B. And steps are being taken to pay the balance this year.
Interestingly, Oworu stressed that 14 communities in Parcel A had 390
hectares of land excised to them in line with the Memorandum of
Understanding that government entered into in 2006.
If the government compensated these
communities and also excised parcels of land to some original owners,
apparently to enable them to resettle, we don’t see how Okunraye
community’s case could have been different. But if it had not got its
due before the Disu episode, it does not in any way justify its resort
to violence. The abject ignorance by rural communities across the
country of the fact that the Land Use Act vests all land in each state
in the governor calls for a serious enlightenment campaign to avoid a
recurrence of the Lekki bloodshed in other states.
The LFTZ is a one-stop business haven,
which, when completed, will have an international airport, refinery,
seaport and highbrow residential accommodation. As of 2012, it had
attracted $1.1 billion investment commitment, according to the immediate
past Minister of Trade and Investment, Olusegun Aganga. Puma Energy
Free Zone Enterprises, Imad Oil and GasApart FZE, China Railway
Construction and YFK Pharmaceutical FEZ are firms that have since
pledged to invest $680 million in the area.
But the prime investor in the LFTZ is
Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, whose refinery will cost over $9
billion. Planned to be the biggest in Africa, the construction of the
refinery will provide 20,000 jobs and engage the services of 8,000
engineers, to underscore the job creation capacity of FTZs. What is
more, Aganga stressed that for “every job created in the FTZ, two
additional jobs are created through a multiplier process.” Seeing the
project as a worthwhile enterprise, the United States Trade and
Development Agency, in July this year, gave N251.3 billion as grant to
Dangote to support human capacity development for those who will run or
manage the Greenfield Petroleum Refinery.
With its 650,000 barrels per day
capacity, the Dangote refinery is expected to tremendously help in
ending the haemorrhaging of Nigeria’s economy through the importation of
petroleum products, which before now cost the country N1 trillion
annually. This was at the heart of brazen theft of public funds under
President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration that climaxed in the N2.5
trillion siphoned in 2011 as fuel subsidy claims.
As the steady decline of crude oil
prices at the global market sends Nigeria’s economy reeling, it
desperately needs foreign investment or capital inflow to stir growth,
expand its productive base, create jobs and stop capital flights. This
is the essence of the LFTZ business model, which must be guarded
jealously. Investors take their capital to where it is safe, and their
personnel can be protected. The Lekki FTZ bloody whirlwind that cost
Disu his life is a disincentive to investment that should not be
brooked.
It is, therefore, the bounden duty of
Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, to ensure that the LFTZ becomes a
safe haven and prove Dianna Games, the CEO of Consulting Company
Africa, wrong. Games had argued in an article shortly after the World
Economic Forum for Africa in Abuja last year that insecurity in Nigeria
“…will continue to undermine the country’s economic trajectory and
growth prospect.”
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