At long last, is this a sigh of relief over war on land guards?

His experience in the block business has exposed him to the activities of land guards in developing areas in the region.

Land guards are people hired by dealers in land to terrorise land owners; as such dealers sell lands to multiple persons.

They are particularly employed in communities where chieftaincy disputes are rife.

The activities of the land guards have, on numerous occasions, caused commotions, leading to the loss of lives and property.

In November 2017, President Nana Akufo-Addo declared war on land guards which exist primarily to meet a demand for land protection services.

“When Akufo-Addo won power and he placed a ban on land guard activities, it has brought peace to all of us,” Addo said thrusting his shovel into a heap of sand he was fetching to mould blocks he has been contracted to do.

His biggest nightmare is now over as he can go about his job without having to look over his shoulders.

“One day we were on site working when some land guards on motorbikes stormed the place and fired warning shots at us,” he recalled. “It was scary and a terrible experience for us.”

Addo grabs a sachet of ‘pure water’ and gulps under a scorching sun and uses his dirty shirt to clean his sweaty face. He looks tired and worn-out after cutting 300 blocks from 10 bags of cement. He has been contracted by a developer to mould 600 blocks which will take him two days to finish.

Surveying and Mapping students fight land guards

“You see, in land litigation, you can be killed and the police will do nothing,” he said breathing speedily. “Sometimes the land guards will dare you to report them to the police.”

His comments, I suspect, is based on widely held claims that Land guards are protected by the top hierarchy of the Ghana Police Service.

In 2017, Ghana’s biggest private newspaper, Daily Guide, reported the dismissal of the former Director General of the Criminal Investigations Department, COP Bright Oduro, from office and linked his dismissal to “a series of petitions against him in connection with land-related issues, particularly land guards.”

It was days after his dismissal that the Akufo-Addo administration launched a major crackdown on land guards’ activities ever witness in the country.

Now there is calm as developers are going about putting up their structures without fear of being harassed, all thanks to the President's committed to ensuring plot owners put up their structures in peace.

The Police have in recent days rounded up hundreds of suspected land guards in the Greater Accra and Central Regions, including the most wanted land guard behind series of violent attacks in Kasoa, Prince Nii Armatey.

Why land guards?

To put the phenomenon of land guards into proper perspective, it is important to provide an overview of issues surrounding land ownership in Ghana.

There are two types of land ownership: the state or public lands compulsorily acquired by the government and private lands which are in communal ownership, held in trust for the community or group by a stool or skin as a symbol of traditional authority, or by a family.

A paper on land guards published in the International Journal on Human Rights and co-authored by Linda Darkwa and Philip Attuquayefio, notes that there is a primary challenge “in establishing who has title over a parcel of land – something many non-indigenous members of a community may not easily be able to verify. This inability to easily verify ownership of title has led to instances of multiple sales of the same parcel of land by several vendors laying claim to ownership of that land. Thus, to prevent other claimants from selling lands, a claimant may either go to court or resort to the use of force.”

The paper, titled: ‘Land Guards, State Subordination and Human Rights in Ghana’ posits “The emergence of land guards is therefore in response to a need for the physical protection of private property interests. Although land guards’ recourse to the use of excessive force, including deadly force with illicit small arms, is illegal, their services are highly sought after as they are considered the only viable choice for the protection of land.”

Land Bill

According to the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources some “fundamental defects identified by the National Land Policy is the fact that the land administration system in Ghana is characterized by a lack of comprehensive land policy framework, reliance on inadequate and outdated legislation, lack of adequate functional and coordinated geographic information systems and poor capacity and capability to initiate and coordinate policy actions.

“Problems with the legislating regime for land administration in Ghana have been identified to include the fact that there are too many laws which create confusion and uncertainty, gaps and overlaps in the laws, inconsistency with the Constitution, and duplication of provisions dealing with the same issues in different laws. In many areas, policy directions and goals need to be further elaborated and translated into law.”

As such, the government has prepared the Land Bill, 2017 to revise and consolidate the laws on land, with the view to harmonising these laws to ensure sustainable land administration and management, effective land tenure and to provide for related matters.

The Bill is the outcome of reforms which were introduced in the land sector as a result of the implementation of the 1999 National Land Policy.

The way forward on land guards

For people like Addo who have no formal education to seek a white colour job and are dependent on the informal jobs like blocking cutting, it is important that the security agencies ensure that land guards never emerge again.

In addition, the court must expedite action on land disputes in the country. In 2002, a report by the Ghana News Agencies said statistics at the High Court Registry in Accra shows that land litigation ranks first in the number of cases pending at the courts.

“About 60,000 cases have been registered in the superior courts alone this year,” the report said.

Also, we need to popularise and simplify the processes of verifying land titles and provide the police with surveillance technologies that enable them to track the activities of land guards in real time to be able to provide timely responses.

Lastly, it is my wish that the clamp down on land guards is sustained for land owners to develop their structures in peace. This is because such sweeping interventions often becomes a nine-day wonder.