Indigenes’ exclusion from neo-customary land: A perspective from changes in usufruct rights in Pramso, peri-urban Kumasi – Ghana

Land tenure systems in sub-Saharan African countries have changed in different ways over time with emergent neo-customary land tenure systems engendering exclusionary tendencies. Drawing on Pramso as a centralised case study in Greater Kumasi’s peri-urban area using in-depth interviews, this paper investigated peri-urban expansion and attendant changes in usufruct rights to understand indigenes’ exclusion from neo-customary land tenure. The paper finds peri-urban urban expansion in Kumasi to be more rapid after 2005 than between 1984 and 2005. In Pramso, the rapid and continuous peri-urban growth coupled with land allocation, together termed as peri-urban land commodification, precipitates neo-customary land tenure in which the focus on physical parcels of converted usufructuary land collapses traditional usufruct rights. In place of the collapsed rights, major remnants includes a quarter share of converted usufructuary land for indigene-families, a quarter share for community development, unconverted usufruct rights in respect of distant land, parcels with existing dwellings, and emergent peri-urban livelihood opportunities. Unlike indigenes, traditional authorities become major beneficiaries of this change. As the traditional usufruct rights are the main entitlement of indigenes, its collapse and traditional authorities’ suddenly becoming major beneficiaries indicates indigenes’ exclusion. The paper contends that the observed pervasive flexibility of customary land tenure systems in sub-Saharan Africa allows this change but also breeds unexpected and undesirable results for certain stakeholders such as indigenes. In the context of the rapid peri-expansion of African cities and the threat of irreversible and continuous change from customary to neo-customary land, the paper calls for right-based management of neo-customary land to equitably benefit all right holders.