Prevention is Better Than Cure

Many of our readers will have been very concerned to read that the people of Nyofelleh Madina village in Kombo Central, better known as Busuranding, 8 Km from Brikama, are in land contention with a family in Gunjur, in Kombo South. It has made many recall the terrible events we witnessed recently at Babylon.

Since that terrible incident 95 people have been dragged to court for arson, going armed in public among other charges.

The disputed area in this case is situated between the villages of Nyofelleh-Madina, Taibato, in Kombo Central, Kunkujang and Nyofelleh-Ba in Kombo South, and is about 7 Km from Gunjur.

The family, called Mang-Kunda in Gunjur took ownership of a vast area of land, an area covering more than a Kilometre square, claiming that it belonged to the family, thus portioning and allocating land to people. They allocated nearly 2000 plots to people and are still allocating.

It is essential that the authorities get involved in this case without delay so that we prevent a repeat of the scenes we saw from Babylon. Action must also be taken to prevent these kinds of disputes from arising in the first place. Land rights and the legislation surrounding them need to be reviewed very soon because these kind of issues are starting to become all too common.

According to people in the area, the matter has reached the office of the Governor of Western Region, but nothing is yet done about it. This is unacceptable. People can very quickly lose their reason when they become involved in land disputes and all too often people are hurt as a result. This cannot be allowed to happen in this case.

Those with the power to prevent tragedy must act immediately to head this trouble off at the pass and enact legislation to ensure that these kinds of disputes become a thing of the past.

"We can make our friends, we can make our enemies; but God makes our next-door neighbour."

G. K. Chesterton