HAUSA GENOCIDE, ETHNIC CLEANSING AND LAND GRABBING IN NORTHERN NIGERIA: WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?

HAUSA GENOCIDE, ETHNIC CLEANSING AND LAND GRABBING IN NORTHERN NIGERIA: WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?

HAUSA GENOCIDE, ETHNIC CLEANSING AND LAND GRABBING IN NORTHERN NIGERIA: WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?

These are difficult questions we must begin asking openly and honestly.

Across parts of the North-East, North-West and North-Central Nigeria, communities have suffered killings, displacement, destruction of homes and livelihoods, and the loss or occupation of ancestral lands.

Some people describe these experiences as g3n0c,de, ethnic cleansing and land grabbing.

Who exactly is responsible?

Is it an ethnic group?

Is it a religious group?

Is it farmers?

Is it herders?

Is it bandits?

Is it armed militias?

Is it criminal land grabbers?

Or are there individuals, organised groups and, in some cases, public officials whose specific actions should be investigated and prosecuted?

CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY MUST FOLLOW THE PERPETRATOR.

If people have been killed because of their identity, if communities have been deliberately driven from their ancestral homes, if their villages have been occupied after their displacement, or if their lands have been unlawfully taken, these allegations deserve serious investigation.

And where the evidence establishes crimes against humanity, persecution, forced displacement, unlawful killing or other serious offences, the perpetrators should face the law.

BUT HERE IS ANOTHER IMPORTANT QUESTION:

DOES THE NIGERIAN CONSTITUTION PERMIT LAND GRABBING?

The Constitution does not give any Nigerian citizen, community, politician, security official, militia, settler or criminal group the right to simply seize another person’s property.

In fact, Section 43 of the 1999 Constitution provides:

“Subject to the provisions of this Constitution, every citizen of Nigeria shall have the right to acquire and own immovable property anywhere in Nigeria.”

That is a constitutional right to own property.

But there is an equally important provision.

Section 44(1) of the Constitution provides that no moveable property or interest in immovable property shall be compulsorily taken possession of, or acquired, except in the manner and for the purposes prescribed by law, including prompt payment of compensation and access to a court or tribunal to determine the person’s interest and the amount of compensation.

In simple English:

Nobody can lawfully take your land simply because they are more powerful, better armed, politically connected, or belong to a particular ethnic group.

Even government acquisition is subject to legal procedures.

NOW, LET’S DEBATE THIS:

If a community is violently displaced from its ancestral land and another group later occupies that land, should the original owners automatically lose their property rights?

If NO, who should be responsible for restoring those rights?

And if the Constitution protects the right of Nigerians to own property, why do we continue to hear allegations of people losing ancestral lands through violence, intimidation and displacement?

Finally:

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE KILLINGS, DISPLACEMENT AND ALLEGED LAND GRABBING IN NORTHERN NIGERIA—and why have so many of these allegations remained unresolved?