Legal Notice 2 of 1994, made under section 5(1) of the State Lands Act, carries two operative sentences and a schedule of boundaries. The second designates Kombo North, Kombo South and Kombo Central as State lands with effect from the first day of March 1994. It recites no purchase, no conquest, no inheritance and no consent. One page in the Gazette, and three districts changed landlords on paper. Part One set down the premise and its proof: the state asserted title to the land of the former...

By Dave Manneh, Securing Futures: Land Rights Action Collaborative (SFLRAC) | 13/04/2026 In December, I described the Gambian state as predatory by design, built to break us. In February, I exposed its survival mechanism: ritual compliance. Citizens perform legitimacy daily without knowing it. Both pieces asked diagnostic questions. This piece asks the necessary third. If the architecture depends on our performance, what happens when we stop feeding it? Three Refusals That Starve the...

Oh, how the once tight-knit community has unravelled, frayed at the edges like a worn-out kaftan. Gone are the days of neighbourly...