NAMWALA SAGA

THAT government will probe circumstances surrounding the controversial Namwala communal grazing land acquired and fenced off by UPND leader, Hakainde Hichilema’s people, is a welcome move, though belated. It has been six solid years since the matter was brought to the attention of government through the office of the District Commissioner following interactions with villagers and traditional chiefs. We would like to believe that the District Commissioner kept the Lands Ministry abreast about this issue. From the correspondence availed to the Daily Nation, it is more than clear that this issue was not hidden from authorities. What we find difficult to understand is why government has ignored the matter all this time. This kind of inertia is dangerous especially when people are needlessly being denied access to what is rightly theirs. It would be sad if the government bureaucracy stood in the way of obtaining justice for a community so dependent on animal rearing that it is almost a religion to them. Animal rearing is not just a life style in some parts of the Zambia, it is not just a source of earning a living but the only livelihood that people know. It is therefore unfathomable that a person who understands this type of life and who is expected to appreciate what this means, would want to disadvantage the local people. It is also sad that the issue of the Namwala grazing land dispute has been in existence for many years without government taking a serious stance to resolve the matter, leaving the villagers feeling abandoned. When the matter first came in 2012, government through the district commissioner established that the source of conflict stemmed from some headman offering communal land to the UPND leader, through his agent. It is not in doubt that the offer and what followed was illegal for the simple reason that the two headman who were involved in this deal, did not have authority to give out such huge tracks of land. Even traditional chiefs do not have authority to give more land what is prescribed under the Land Act. Ministry of Lands can give out 1,000 hactares and above that, only the republican President can authorize. We are gratified that Ministry of Lands Minister, Jean Kapa has sent officers to Namwala to get to the bottom of the grazing land conflict that has villagers up in arms. Action is what is need not, mere rhetoric. We have had enough of that. “We have instituted investigations into the land dispute involving the opposition UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema and once found wanting, the land will be given back to the community,” Lands and Natural Resources Minster Jean Kapata told the Daily Nation. That over 600 villages, which would mean thousands of villagers, have been deprived of communal grazing land, is shocking. Zambians generally like sharing and that is why that land was allocated to every member of the community to graze their animals. It is wrong to assume that because one has money and influence over some traditional leaders, then they can bulldoze the rest of the community into giving up their birthright. This is total nonsense. Government should sit up and see how the ordinary people are being taken advantage of. These villagers have no one to fight for them. The only parent they know is government. They cannot fight money. All they can ask for is justice through government intervention.