01/06/2017
_Gone are the days people are pushed to invest in land. The truth is, everyone who can afford will invest.
I grew up in Rumuibekwe Estate, Port Harcourt, which has common boundaries with Rumuibekwe village and Rumuibekwe Extension. Then Rumuibekwe Extension had no name. It was just a forest with a single road because of the Graham Douglas property there. The road was where we passed to the stream.
The forest belonged to the village. They had not shared it at the time. When they did share, every family and son received theirs accordingly. The land ripened quickly because it was just after Rumuibekwe Estate, which is opposite Shell RA. And Rumuibekwe Estate had big names. It still does.
After the land was shared, families started selling their plots. The young men who were indigenes became the big boys. Since they already had rooms in their fathers' houses, they only had to furnish the rooms. They bought high mattresses, TV and VCR, then fixed blue bulbs. Their rooms were beautiful. Some bought Mercedes 230 and carried their girlfriends, who they called "my wife", on the front passenger seat.
While they enjoyed the things they bought which gradually became outdated, the areas they sold gradually developed. These people who bought lands became landlords, and those who once owned the land remained landlords where they built. It was a win-win. But a lot changed. Rumuibekwe Extension became better than Rumuibekwe village in terms of development, making her landlords somewhat more worthy. For the young men who sold their lands, I cannot say much about them, because I do not know.
No doubt, real estate is a lucrative business, but it takes a lot of wisdom to flourish in it. You do not sell your maize farm without keeping a few grains for the next farming season, or keeping funds aside to buy. Whether old-timer or newcomer, everybody needs land for it is the very thing wealth stands on, aside the fact that it is wealth itself.
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