By Dauda Lawal

Sometimes, the real enemies in business are not the “village people.”

Sometimes, they are competitors.

And sometimes, the people standing in the way of an investment may not even understand that they are being used to frustrate the very investment that could transform their own lives.

I was reminded of this recently when I came across a story attributed to former President Olusegun Obasanjo about Alhaji Aliko Dangote’s experience while establishing his cement business in Senegal.

At the groundbreaking ceremony of the Dangote East Africa Petroleum Refinery in Kenya, President Obasanjo reportedly narrated how Dangote encountered serious opposition after completing a massive cement plant in Senegal.

According to the account, the factory, with a capacity of about five million tonnes, was completed but could not commence operations for approximately two years.

The reason?

Land.

The land on which the investment had been established became the centre of a serious dispute.

According to Obasanjo’s account, Dangote’s major competitor was behind the agitation, allegedly using the land dispute and community tensions to frustrate the project.

For two years, a potentially transformative investment was caught in the middle of a conflict.

Then something changed.

Dangote sought the intervention of Baba Obasanjo.

President Obasanjo engaged the Senegalese authorities, and the matter was eventually resolved.

That story is a powerful reminder that land is not merely a physical asset on which businesses are built. In Africa, land is often history, identity, culture, inheritance, power and livelihood—all at once.

And that is precisely why land can either become the foundation of a successful investment or the battlefield that destroys it.

THE POWER OF LAND

For an investor, land may represent hectares, production capacity, infrastructure and capital expenditure.

For the community, that same piece of land may represent ancestral heritage, the graves of forefathers, farming livelihoods, family identity and the economic future of generations yet unborn.

The investor sees an opportunity.

The community sees ownership.

The government sees development.

Competitors may see a threat.

And if these interests are not properly understood and managed, a promising investment can quickly become a conflict.

This is why I have come to appreciate that community engagement is not an afterthought to investment. It is part of the investment itself.

A company can have the money.

It can have the technology.

It can have the land.

It can have the government approvals.

But without the confidence and cooperation of the communities around it, its social licence to operate may remain fragile.

THE AFRICAN BUSINESS REALITY

When Michael Porter developed his famous Five Forces framework, he gave businesses a powerful tool for understanding competitive pressures within an industry.

But doing business in Africa sometimes requires another layer of analysis.

You must understand the human ecosystem around the business.

Who owns the land?

Who speaks for the community?

Who influences the people?

Who are the traditional authorities?

Who are the youth leaders?

Who represents the women?

What are the historical grievances?

What promises have been made before?

What does the community expect?

And perhaps most importantly:

What does the community believe this investment means for them?

These questions can determine whether an investment thrives or struggles.

The Dangote story demonstrates what can happen when community tensions become entangled with commercial competition.

BUILDING A DIFFERENT STORY AT AGBEYEWA FARMS

At Agbeyewa Farms, under the chairmanship of Mr. John Olajide, we are deliberately building a different story.

Agbeyewa is not simply an agricultural company acquiring land to plant cassava.

It is an agricultural ecosystem being built around people, land, communities, jobs, food security, processing, value creation and shared prosperity.

And that makes community engagement central to what we do.

As a Community Engagement Specialist, one of the things I have learned is that you cannot wait until there is a crisis before you start talking to your community.

Engagement must begin before the crisis.

It must begin before the bulldozers arrive.

Before the tractors enter the fields.

Before the first seed goes into the ground.

It must begin with listening.

At Agbeyewa, our approach is anchored on what I call the 3Cs of Community Engagement: Collaboration, Consultation and Communication.

We engage traditional rulers.

We engage chiefs and community leaders.

We engage land-owning families.

We engage youth and women leaders.

We engage farmers and community associations.

We engage government institutions.

We listen, explain, consult, clarify and continuously communicate.

Because the objective is not simply to obtain access to land.

The objective is to build trust around the land.

LANDOWNERS SHOULD NOT BE THE LAST PEOPLE TO KNOW

There is an important principle here for every investor:

Never allow the people whose land hosts your investment to become the last people to understand your investment.

When people understand what you are building, why you are building it and what it means for them, they become stakeholders in the story.

When they are excluded, uncertainty fills the vacuum.

And uncertainty can quickly become suspicion.

Suspicion can become resistance.

Resistance can become conflict.

And conflict can delay an investment for years.

This is why community engagement is not public relations.

It is not about taking pictures with traditional rulers.

It is not about distributing gifts.

It is not about showing up when there is a problem.

It is relationship management at the deepest level.

FROM LAND TO LEGACY

The most powerful transformation happens when a community stops seeing an investor as someone who has merely come to use its land and starts seeing that investor as a partner in its future.

That is the relationship we are working to build at Agbeyewa.

We want communities to see the farm not simply as hectares of cassava.

We want them to see jobs for their children, markets for their farmers, opportunities for their businesses, infrastructure, skills development, food production, industrialisation and a pathway to a more prosperous future.

That is the bigger picture of the Agbeyewa agricultural ecosystem.

From cultivation to aggregation.

From processing to trading.

From the farm to the factory.

From raw cassava to value-added products.

From land to livelihoods.

From investment to impact.

And ultimately, from community acceptance to community ownership of the development story.

THE LESSON FOR INVESTORS

The Dangote experience offers a profound lesson.

A competitor may challenge your product.

A competitor may challenge your price.

A competitor may challenge your market share.

But in some environments, competition can take a much more complicated route—through relationships, narratives and community dynamics.

That is why investors must understand the ecosystem around their investments.

And they must invest in relationships with the same seriousness with which they invest in equipment, infrastructure and technology.

Because a tractor can cultivate land.

Capital can develop land.

Technology can transform land.

But trust is what gives an investment the social licence to operate on that land.

At Agbeyewa Farms, we are determined to demonstrate that there is a better way.

A way where communities are not treated as obstacles to development but as partners in development.

A way where landowners are not merely custodians of property but stakeholders in prosperity.

A way where traditional institutions are not approached only when there is a problem but continuously engaged as partners.

A way where investment and community development do not compete with each other—they reinforce each other.

THE BIGGER OPPORTUNITY FOR EKITI

Ekiti State has enormous potential.

But unlocking that potential requires more than bringing capital into the state.

It requires building trust around capital.

It requires investors who understand the people.

It requires communities that understand the opportunities.

It requires government that creates an enabling environment.

And it requires a continuous conversation among all stakeholders.

That is the kind of ecosystem we are working to build at Agbeyewa.

Because when land, capital, government, communities and enterprise move in the same direction, the result can be transformational.

The ultimate objective is not simply to build the biggest farm.

It is to build an agricultural ecosystem that creates value, transforms lives and leaves communities better than we met them.

Land should not become the battlefield between investors and communities.

It should become the foundation upon which both build a better future.

That, for me, is the real power of strategic community engagement.

Engage early.
Listen deeply.
Build trust.
Create value.
Transform lives.

And when you get that right, the land does not become an obstacle to investment.

It becomes the foundation of a legacy.

Lawal is the Director of Community Engagement
Agbeyewa Farms Limited
Dlawal@agbeyewa.com