–UG Vice-Chancellor candidate warns
Guyana’s future is in jeopardy if our trees are cut down indiscriminately, our water bodies are allowed to be polluted, indiscriminate dumping of garbage in the waterways and squatting are ignored and even compensated, Nigerian-born Professor Jacob Opadeyi said on Thursday evening.
Opadeyi, one of the four candidates shortlisted for the position of Vice-Chancellor of the University of Guyana (UG), was presenting a public lecture entitled, ‘Managing our Land, Managing our Future’.
Opadeyi is the Deputy Dean, Enterprise Develop-ment and Outreach, Faculty of Engineering at the University of the West Indies. The other three candidates on the Vice Chancellor shortlist—Professor Rory Fraser, Dr Jaipaul Singh and Dr Muniram Boodhoo—are also expected to present public lectures on subjects of their choice as part of the evaluation process.
Professor Opadeyi, who says he has a keen interest in land development, made his presentation before approximately 50 persons, almost all of whom were academic and administrative staff members of UG’s Turkeyen Campus.
Opadeyi, a naturalised citizen of Trinidad and Tobago and a Professor of Geomatics Engineering and Land Management, said managing land effectively means managing the future.
He pointed out that major factors as well are the common disputes about land ownership which lead to murder, when property transactions are not conducted in an open market and if land capacity is not enhanced.
Professor Opadeyi, during his 45-minute presentation, spoke at length of the characteristics and features of the land of Trinidad although he raised some points that were based on a watershed analysis he did in Guyana four years ago of land along the Linden/Soesdyke Highway.
He noted that the study was conducted on both sides of the highway and they had looked at soil capacity and topographic characteristics among other things. Additionally, he pointed out that he had looked at roads, streams and soils of individual communities, such as Madewini.
During the question segment, the Professor was asked about findings of water/soil relationships here in Guyana and he indicated that this is an area that still requires immense studying. “We need to study that seriously,” he noted, adding that the study he was involved in was funded by the UNDP and was the first of its kind in the Caribbean.
“We couldn’t go so far… in order to do a study like that, you need 30 years of heavy rainfall,” he further pointed out. He added too that it would be a good move to have UG students participate in more of these studies and progress in hydrology studies.
Opadeyi said that in developing land, rights, which speak of the right to use, transfer or dispose of land; restrictions, provided by the law; and responsibilities, which entail the owner to care, manage and pay taxes, need to be remembered.
He noted that this is for our social and economic development and “what we use, our great grandchildren must also be able to use.”
Among the land policy perspectives Opadeyi said are political, sociological, economic and geographic. He pointed out that the political aspect comes into play when “lawlessness” is encouraged. “In Trinidad and Tobago, you can’t remove squatters. If you remove squatters, you lose the elections the next day and that is lawlessness,” he affirmed. He also pointed out that one of the challenges facing land management in T&T is the inadequate management of ownership information.
This and other information, he stated, is essential for the government to be knowledgeable about if there will be development where land is concerned. At the level of Caricom, he further stated, several questions aimed at the proper management were posed and at least one head of government had admitted to not being aware of the answers. “You cannot manage land if you don’t know the answers to those questions,” he added.
One of the questions, he relayed, was simply, “who owns land?” He explained that in T&T some years ago, no records were kept and as a result, the government was in expense when land had to be bought back from private owners for sometimes 20 times the initial value. He also pointed out that in many instances, illegal money coming into a country was invested in land and as such, records of the buyers should be kept.
According to Opadeyi, we should have concern for the land requirements of our children, concern for food security, safety of our investment in land and protection of our eco-system. Around the Caribbean, he noted, land is used to build the economic value in various ways. He used Barbados, an island which uses its water to build on tourism and Guyana which uses its soil for agricultural purposes, as examples.
