Ogun Communities Protest Alleged Land Allocation to Chinese Investors, and Honestly, Nobody Remembers Being Invited to the Meeting

Good news: investors are interested in Nigeria. Bad news: so is the landlord, and he is your uncle.

Communities in Ogun are protesting what they say is the allocation of their land to Chinese investors. Alleged, o. Please note the word. It is the “I did not say it” of journalism.

Now, let us be fair. Investment is good. Everyone says so. Every politician says “we are open for business” the way a shop owner says “come in, come in” while quietly hiding the good stock. The trouble starts when the villagers find out the shop is on their farmland, and nobody told them the lease had changed hands.

Take Baba Kehinde, a man I invented but whom you definitely know. Baba Kehinde has farmed the same plot for forty years. He knows every stone and every snake by name. He heard about the deal the way all villagers hear about big news: from a cousin, who heard from a driver, who heard from a man who had been in a meeting he was not in. By the time it reached him, the land had been sold twice, and the story had grown legs.

Supporters of such projects will say jobs, factories, development, and they may well be right. Everyone loves a factory, as long as it is not placed on top of their groundnuts. And some will say that communities should wait for the full details before protesting. That is fair advice, but it is also what people say right before the details are quietly signed.

Meanwhile, the protesters have done what Nigerians do best: they have made placards. Some are written in perfect English, some in pidgin, and one in a handwriting so bold that you can read it from the next local government. The slogan is simple: “Tell us first.” Not “stop development.” Not “go home.” Just “tell us first.” It is the most polite protest in history.

And let us not forget the middleman, a proud Nigerian institution. He appears at every land deal, wearing a good agbada, carrying a folder and offering to “explain everything” after lunch. Nobody knows how he gets there, but he always arrives before the paperwork.

Anyway, we wish everyone well. May the investors prosper, may the communities be consulted, and may every land document match the land it describes.