Keep off Mau, Raila tells Moi

• Prime Minister Raila Odinga accuses former President Moi of interfering in plans to conserve Mau forest and warns him to stay away
  

Kenya's Prime Minister Raila Odinga on Saturday accused former President Moi of interfering with government plans to conserve the Mau Forest and urged him to keep off.

Mr Odinga said that what the government was doing was to try and correct mistakes committed by the former government under Mr Moi which led to the destruction of the forest.

“We are trying to rectify problems that the former President created and he should stop interfering with what we are doing to conserve the Mau. We want to conserve the Mau for posterity and the former President should stop interfering in efforts we are undertaking to that effect,” Mr Odinga said in Shinyalu while on the campaign trail for the ODM candidate. “We are cleaning up after the mess he left.”

The PM’s statement could be seen as underlining the government’s seriousness about evicting illegal settlers in the Mau complex if they defy an order to leave the water catchment.

A contingent of security officers is being put together to enforce the directive. Any doubts that the removal of the illegal settlers will start sooner rather than later were dispelled on Friday by Prime Minister Raila Odinga at a rally in Kisii where he termed the decision “irreversible”.

Before the PM spoke, sources close to his office told the Sunday Nation that teams of General Service Unit, Administration Police and Forest Service rangers were being put together to carry out the evictions in case the settlers refuse to leave the forest.

Their instructions are to ensure the orders the government gives are followed. But the farmers will be allowed to harvest but not to replant their farms.

The PM said he was putting together an inter-ministerial task force to oversee the Mau rehabilitation and that its work could start as early as this week.

“The structure is not in place yet. It is likely to be firmed up in the next Cabinet meeting (Thursday),” said a government official familiar with the workings of the Mr Odinga’s office but who can’t be named because he is not authorised to speak for the PM. “The ministries of Lands, Forestry, Finance, Tourism, Internal Security, Wildlife, Special Programmes and Agriculture will be represented. UNEP too,” the official said.

Stands out

The inclusion of the Internal Security ministry suggests eviction using the law enforcement machinery is being taken into account.

The Ministry of Agriculture also stands out in that the minister, William Ruto, has led a section of MPs from Rift Valley in demanding compensation for the Mau settlers before relocation.

An indicator that matters had taken a new level came when a press conference Forestry minister Noah Wekesa had called on the Mau issue on Thursday was abruptly cancelled.

For some months now, the minister had been struggling to assume the lead role in the increasingly charged Mau issue to no avail. In any case, the President made it plain last week that the Mau docket was firmly with the Prime Minister.

Though it seemed not to have been immediately apparent to Mr Wekesa, Mau was no longer just a forestry concern but had taken much bigger inter-governmental dimensions.

The quickening pace of events was evidently not what the Rift Valley MPs who met President Kibaki two weeks ago had bargained for.

Nor may they have imagined the PM – who they kept out of that meeting – would re-emerge in an even more powerful role as the chief enforcer of Mau’s environmental reclamation. And this, with President Kibaki’s full backing.

The President has not been speaking like the same person who the Rift Valley group sought to portray as having reached a quiet understanding with them – behind the PM’s back.

While touring the Coast last week, the President directed that those who had encroached on the Mau ecosystem be arrested and prosecuted.

On Wednesday, when he launched the strategic plan for the PM’s office, the President asked Mr Odinga to take charge of the restoration of water towers “without delay”.

Following the earlier meeting at Harambee House with the President, the Rift Valley MPs indicated that they had been promised the evictions would not be carried out until everybody – not just the 1,962 title holders the government says are genuine – was compensated. They further implied that the evictions would be carried out over two years.

Air grievances

The same Rift Valley MPs who had sought to air their grievances directly to the President but officials familiar with what was discussed say no underhand deal was made.

Mr Odinga was the first person to be “fully briefed” by the President about the meeting after the MPs left.

One of the officials privy to what happened told the Sunday Nation that the President avoided dwelling on the Mau issue by pointedly telling the MPs the matter was being dealt with by the PM’s office as per an earlier government decision.

Our source was of the impression that the MPs had not come so much about the Mau, but rather to seek common ground in “shutting out” Mr Odinga.

Somebody in the PM’s circles had learnt of an elaborate plan where particular MPs in the delegation had been selected by the group to raise specific issues, one being to invite the President to tour the Rift Valley accompanied exclusively by themselves. This would presumably send a loaded message to the PM.

According to the source, the group wanted Higher Education minister Sally Kosgei to raise the matter but they were uncertain whether she would be present because nobody was sure she would agree to join a delegation which was openly being seen to be undercutting the PM.

In case she refused to come like her Cabinet colleague Henry Kosgey, the group reportedly had lined up assistant minister for Co-operatives Linah Kilimo, who gets along fine with the President, to score that point.

Building bridges

Ms Kosgei joined the delegation but veered off the script somewhat. In her request for the Kibaki visit, she said it was important for the President and the PM to join hands with the Rift Valley MPs in building peace bridges between the communities in the province.

The President did not turn down the invitation but said the details would be worked out.

Sports minister Hellen Sambili had reportedly been earmarked to request the President to consider giving the province more senior government appointments.

But the MPs changed their minds, since her husband is a permanent secretary. It is not clear who was asked to raise the matter.

The President steered the meeting into a broader discussion about peaceful co-existence of the communities in the province.

Then there is view that Mr Odinga has been handed a rope to hang himself, which a Rift Valley MP who was not part of the delegation that met the President dismisses as misplaced.
“I think everybody involved is acting on the very real environmental disaster that has been brought to their eyes. This is beyond politics,” the MP said.