The Diamonds of Marange

The issue of land ownership in most parts of Africa is still a conundrum. The traditional authorities, i.e. the chiefs and herdsmen are supposed to be the custodians of the land but real power over the land is usually vested in the central government, which can usually appropriate any land for any purpose, after a token compensation to the traditional leaders.?Usually in the case of?minerals and timber, the government reserves to itself the sole right to determine who exploits these resources without even consulting the traditional leaders?or the locals, who usually earn their living as peasant farmers on the land.

Hence, there is a dichotomy of land ownership, where traditional leaders are able to appropriate land where farming and building are concerned but has little power over the same land as soon as minerals are discovered on the very same lands. This situation always serve to shortchange the locals in any attempt to exploit and benefit from the mineral resources of the very land on which they farm, a land that might have been passed to them?through several?generations?of their ancestors. This allows unscrupulous politicians and corrupt government officials to team up with giant multinational corporations to cheat these poor peasants out of their birthright or fair share of the mineral wealth of their land. This has been adequately captured by Dr. Mupanduki in this Marange diamonds scenario.

Indigenous forces in Africa?must therefore muster all the political capital they can garner to strip the government of its monopoly of being the final arbiter of the fate of the mineral and timber resources of the land. It is only when the people own outright whatever it is that lies on, or beneath their land, that the African peasant can utilize the land for his own benefit, whether he chooses to become a farmer or a miner, based on what his land has in store for him.

Odomfour Nana Kwasi Apraku III
Paramount Chief of Odomase (Brong-Ahafo, Ghana)
(Dr. Bismarck Amoah-Apraku, MD PhD)