Greets

This is why it's different with me: Picture this; I was born and grew up in Botswana. In my early 30's now I have only very recently been able to get my application for land through to the relevant authorities. The response was that the 'turnaround time' is anything up to 10 years! That is for villages which are considered to have some infrastructure I guess, because the turnaround time in villages that are more rural than mine is much less (about 3 years).

Now the land that I have applied for is known as 'tribal' land and is meant to be a right of all 'indegenous' tribespeople. The problem is besides it taking so long, I believe I only knew about such rights since it is a part of our recorded culture. Before independence such land was administered by the chief of ones tribe or chief of one's home village (since a village included people from different tribes because of marriage, migration etc.) When the British were running things powers were slowly taken away from the chiefs and given first to the Queen of England and then to our first democratically elected government. So today land is distributed by the government through elected 'landboards.'

It has taken so long for me to apply because the information does not seem to be so freely available. Apart from knowing my rights, I also had to know who the local 'land overseer' was so I could apply. A Motswana adult can apply for tribal land in ANY village in the country where there is tribal land. I am not sure if these rights are extended to people who are not citizens by birth (it takes a 10 year residence and some knowledge of the spoken local language among other things to become a citizen or your children I think have rights to citizenship if they are born here and anyone of their parents is a citizen). For Afrikans in the diaspora there has always been their plea to be recognised and afforded the right to 'choose their nationality' as stated in the U.N. Human Rights.

At 30 something years of age I am still unaware of where I have to go to acquire land in the urban areas (towns and cities). They sure never taught us in school!

'Patriots' in my country are always exhorting our people not to buy land or sell land.

Personally I have always believed that land can only belong to the creator since we are only here for a while... But if I build a strong house then my children and children's children might live in it when I am gone, but as it stands they would still have to renew the land certificate after 100 years! Other land rights I have of which I am aware are rights to have a field and also a place for a well or borehole for my livestock.