Evicted herders fight to keep former president’s ranch

From the Kenya Air force Nanyuki camp, locals point at a miniature Safaricom transmitter and the road leading to Rumuruti. It is a remote setting.

“With luck, you’ll be there in an hour or so,” they say.

The Nanyuki-Rumuruti road is a rough earth stretch that becomes impassable during the rains and has deep gullies in the predominantly dry weather that characterises the area. 

We are driving to Kabarak Farm, an expansive 17,000-acre ranch formerly owned by retired President Daniel arap Moi. To an outsider, there is nothing attractive about this dry piece of earth. But that is not the case for the 3,000 herdsmen and their families who are clinging to the only piece of land they can call home.

After three evictions which saw their manyattas demolished and all their belongings and food burnt in just six months, their temerity to call the place home appears to be unfathomable.

Mr Philip Lalampaa, 28, is one of the few herdsmen who can speak Kiswahili. With a wife and two children, Mr Lalampaa says they are tied to the ranch because they depend on it for their livelihood.

“What will happen to our families and livestock if we do not have access to the Kisargei River?” he asks. Kisargei is a tributary of the Ewaso Nyiro river and dissects the Kabarak ranch, providing a crucial lifeline to the herdsmen.

Been cut off

Mr Lalampaa is one of the herdsmen who was recently cut off from their families and livestock by the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF), the new owners of the farm.

Solar fencing of the ranch has been completed and the herdsmen were evicted for the third time. Their dwellings were burnt down and most of their livestock driven off.

The evictions were done on the market day when the men had gone to shop, leaving only women and children.

Agents sent by the new owners invaded the manyattas and razed them.

Mzee Lenchordor Lunyeke, who has lived on the ranch for 22 years, said he saw wailing women and children stagger out of their burning manyattas as police and hired men set more manyattas on fire.

“It was a sad day. Many people were injured. The only transport to hospital was outside the new gate, just a kilometre away. But many couldn’t make it there. They just lay there in the open,” Mr Lunyeke said.

Laikipia police boss James Kithuka denied claims that his officers were involved in the evictions, saying most of the squatters had already left voluntarily. He added that only a few “trouble makers” occasionally sneaked back to the farm.

The herdsmen and the new owners are locked in a legal tussle over the ownership of the ranch.

AWF wants to establish a wildlife sanctuary like the neighbouring Ol Pajeta Ranch, which has become world famous for wildlife conservation and management.

But the herdsmen say they have lived on the ranch for more than 12 years and can invoke a legal provision called adverse possession, which they said allows them to be recognised as the rightful owners.

Courts to decide

The lawyer for the herdsmen, Mr Charles Koech, said his clients should have been consulted before the property was transferred to new owners.
For now, However, it is a matter for the courts to decide whether the herdsmen will continue to call Kabarak farm their home.

A solar powered electric fence now secures the ranch, which is guarded round the clock by private guards armed with bows and arrows. The farm is sandwiched between the ADC Mutara farm and the Sagare Ranch.

The herdsmen now have to walk 20 kilometres to get to their families and livestock locked in from the boundary on the Rumuruti side. It is not clear what will happen if that side is also fenced off.

The herdsmen are full of praise for Mr Moi, saying he allowed them to graze their cattle on the ranch. They were employed to herd the former President’s herds.

“Moi left us in peace. We have nothing to say against him,” says 45-year-old Lekitasharan Lekudash.

So what exactly do the herdsmen want? “Let the new owners leave this farm to us. They can look for another place.”