By Moses Massa, Esq

Introduction

Land is the quintessential of all life and human activity—the omnipresent source of everything we need and use. In the beginning, the Book of Genesis, tells us that the first man was made from the earth’s dust. From it we pull our daily sustenance, living upon it through all our days, until we are interred back into its silent cuddle. That being said, the practice and law that anchor our homes and livelihoods to that very soil must be strongly protected against any attempt to strip us off it. Against this backdrop, the recent statement of the Minister of Lands, Dr Turad Senessie, demands some plain speaking and public education.

The Pugnacious but Pusillanimous Utterance

In a recent press briefing, the Minister dropped a confounding claim: he stated that nobody genuinely owns title in Sierra Leone, and that if you look strictly at the law, no one actually owns land here at all. That bold and ill-advised statement quite rightly prompted an immediate pushback from the Lawyers Society, exposing a profound, worrying misunderstanding of real property law by some public officials; especially those in the Lands Ministry. Some officials have publicly gone so far as to argue that the Conveyancing Act 1881—the foundational bedrock of how property is bought, sold, and passed down—doesn’t actually deal with “title”; and dangerously, no mention of the word.

When public officials exercise temporary administrative power and threaten citizens’ constitutional rights, they personify the hubris Shakespeare depicts in Measure for Measure:

“Man, proud man,/ Dressed in a little brief authority, / Most ignorant of what he’s most assured, / His glassy essence, like an angry ape, / Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven / As make the angels weep.”

It is indeed pusillanimous for officials entrusted with state power to forage into strange areas and misread statutes—conveniently ignoring the Conveyancing Act. Every public official in public service has to respect legal boundaries, not using a statutory authority as bully pulpit to strip citizens of their vested rights from a position of temporary safety. For property owners, buyers, and lawyers, this isn’t just a harmless slip of the tongue. It’s a dangerous administrative dearth of legal and historical knowledge. When the very people tasked with managing our land start misreading or dismissing the core laws protecting ownership, the stability of the entire state is put on notice.

A Legacy of Title (Ownership): The Historical Context

To see just how detached the Minister’s stance really is, we only have to look at the history of land acquisition itself. From the earliest generations, mankind was given possession of the earth. Communities, societies, nations, and empires were established, formalized over time through the creation of maps that demarcated boundaries. In local customary law, while there may be no modern documentary proof, there exists an unshakeable title anchored in ancestral and geographical evidence.

Long before the British ever arrived, Sierra Leone was organized into distinct settlements governed by kings and traditional rulers who fought to defend, govern, and expand their territories. When the British came in 1787 to set up a refuge for freed slaves, their very first port of call was negotiating for a land directly with the local Temne ruler, King Tom. As colonial influence began—climaxing with the declaration of the colony in 1808 and the steady introduction of English law—the spark of resistance was fueled.

Later, when the British imposed the cruel Hut Tax on native homes in 1896, it sparked a revolutionary spirit. The famous Temne Chief, Bai Bureh mobilized his people in the Hut Tax War of 1898 to defend their independence, their homes, and their land. All of this points to a fundamental truth the Ministry keeps missing: land ownership and what we call “title” didn’t start with modern statecraft paperwork. It is rooted deep in pre-colonial rule, ancestral heritage, blood, and law.

Biblical Land Transactions and the Validity of Title

To argue that title only exists where a modern government registry issues a certificate is to display a profound ignorance of human history, stretching far back to sacred scripture. Long before paper and administrative bodies existed, valid land titles were created through open agreements, community witness, and lawful exchange.

For instance, when Abraham had an issue with Abimelech; his army Commander, over a well, he took sheep and oxen, gave to Abimelech as consideration and the two made a covenant (Gen 21: 22-33). Also, when Abraham, purchased the cave of Machpelah from Ephron the Hittite as a family burial site, he paid him openly and weighed out the consideration (400 hundred shekels of silver) before those present as witnesses (Gen 23). Years later, when Jacob bought a parcel of land in Shechem from the sons of Hamor for hundred pieces of money, there was no state or private-issued title deed or conveyancing involved (Gen 33: 18-20). Yet, the title was undeniably transferred, recognized, and respected between the parties and successors.

These ancient transactions prove a timeless reality: title is rooted in lawful acquisition, valuable consideration, and mutual agreement by the parties—not in the convenience of a modern government office.

What is a “Title” Anyway?

To grasp how thoughtless the Minister’s current stance is, we have to understand what a title actually means. A title is the legal means by which an owner holds lawful possession of their property, which only they can convey (pass) to another by sale, gift, or lease.

A title isn’t just a casual paper. It’s the entire bundle of rights proving that a piece of land or property belongs to one, that one can give or sell it, and that one can sleep at night without fearing anything untoward. When someone buys land, their entire security rests on a clear chain of title. That is precisely why laws like the Conveyancing Act 1881 were drafted in the first place—to bring order, certainty, and iron protection to property transfers.

Our Property Laws—What They Actually Say?

To say that the Conveyancing Act 1881 is silent on title is flat-out ignoring or ignorance of the law. To wit, Part III of that 1881 Act is explicitly titled “Covenants for Title” (Section 7). It inevitably hardens legal guarantees into property sales, ensuring the vendor (seller) legally has the right to hand over the land free of encumbrance. Also Section 3 states the conditions for examining titles, trusting old documents, and handling title deeds.

Simultaneously, we cannot forget the Statutory Declarations Act 1835, which is the foundation of long held lands (possessory title) in our country. In the Western Area, where generations have held, lived on, and passed down land without a colonial crown grant, the statutory declaration is how we swear to and protect our land history. When long, undisturbed possession—backed by these declarations and a survey plan with an official LS number—is processed, it shows a shocking disconnect from how real people actually live and own property here.

Pretending these laws have nothing to do with title is trying to rewrite the history of property law by a Ministry created by that very law itself. In fact, this exact kind of executive high-handedness is why judicial checks exist in the first place—the same reason our Supreme Court, in the landmark case of Pratt & Pratt v. Dr. Turad Senessie & Ors (The Minister of Lands) (2024), had to step in and put a stop to administrative overreach and euphemistic land grabbing.

Ironically, when the Minister was brought before the Supreme Court as the respondent in that very matter, he chose a noticeably pusillanimous path: he never entered an appearance to defend his actions. Having ducked judicial remedy in a court of law, he now retreats to the safety of a press briefing to lecture citizens on a legal reality he lacked the courage to test where and when it actually mattered.

Exposing the Hypocrisy

This whole disarray also highlights an ongoing structural problem- the Lands Ministry has rarely been blessed or fortunate to have ministers with a background in law. Where issues are based on law, history and officials at the helm lack such fundamentals, policies, interventions get distorted, while the public gets needlessly stressed.

This brings us to a very straightforward, obvious question for the Minister and his officials: Have they bought land before, and if so, how did they acquire and protect it? And if they want to buy land now, how would they go about it? If their own private land purchases rely on the exact same titles and conveyances they are publicly dismissing, then their entire bombast falls apart as pure hypocrisy.

Why Saying What the Law Is Not Is State Insecurity

We might wonder why a government department misinterpreting 19th-century English land statutes that have held sway and been relevant to date is a threat to the nation as a whole. The answer strikes at the heart of governance: the state exists for the people, not for itself. There can be no state without a people, yet history reminds us that there are people—though few—who have survived without a recognized state.

A state functions entirely on the shared belief that contracts, deeds, and legal securities are binding. When the authority charged with managing land publicly declares that titles are essentially a fiction, the consequences ripple across the entire society. It shatters contractual certainty, prevents investment and commerce because no one can trust the validity of their assets. It invites arbitrary rule, replacing the rule of law with administrative impulse and opening the door to systemic corruption and land-grabbing. It awakens history’s ghosts, risking social unrest and open defiance from communities whose ancestral ties to the land run far deeper than the temporary government rhetoric. It pits the executive branch against the judiciary, undermining the constitutional checks and balances that hold our state together.

A government cannot claim to uphold order while at the same time declaring that the laws securing its citizens’ lives and property do not exist. Statements like these undermine people’s security and the very essence of the state’s formation in the first place.

Conclusion- Moving Forward

Moving forward, land acquisition and administration are far too serious a process to be run on misunderstood statutes and a blind eye to history. The Ministry of Lands needs to take a long, hard look at the various laws dealing with property and uphold the legal boundaries that keep ownership secure, while operating strictly within its statutory limits.

Until public officials start respecting the law and honoring our nation’s deep history of land tenure, the stability of the entire state remains at risk. After all, if a stroke of a pen and an official’s misinterpretation can wash away the law protecting our titles, whose republic—the land we love—is truly safe?