Appraisal of Land Grabbing and the Challenge on Agroeconomic Activities of Plateau State Polytechnic Students From Mangu, Bokkos and Barkin Ladi LGAs

For quite a while, land grabbing has consistently been expanding across the Middle Belt region of Nigeria. In Plateau State, several communities have been displaced and their ancestral lands, which were hitherto their primary means of sustenance, have been taken over since 1999. This has affected several activities, including the agroeconomy sector, that thrive within Plateau State. Unfortunately, the challenge of land grabbing on agroeconomic activities among Plateau State Polytechnic students has not been investigated. Through a case study of three Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Mangu, Bokkos and Barkin Ladi, this paper examined land grabbing in central and northern parts of Plateau State. Initially, the paper investigated the nature and dynamics of land grabbing and subsequently examined its challenge on agroeconomic activities on students in the selected LGAs. Primary data for the study were gathered from 180 students that were selected from the LGAs and from the field visits to some affected communities in the LGAs while the secondary data were drawn from existing literature and from verified social media handles. Adopting the descriptive approach, the data were subsequently analyzed based on the Principles of Land Acquisition (PLA) in Nigeria. It has been established in the study that land dispossession in the LGAs by non state actors is a calculated form of terrorist-driven land grabbing that has been proven to constitute a serious threat on agroeconomy which is the source of livelihood and income of the students and land owners in the LGAs. To sustain and enhance agroeconomic activities in the LGAs, it has been suggested in this paper that government should implore deliberate measures to rebuild and return all grabbed lands to their ancestral owners.