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.”
