Anti-reform lobby a regrouping of old Kadu and white settlers
We need to do a reality check on the much-hyped issue of land and how it relates to the draft constitution. Contrary to common perceptions, the majority of private large-scale farms are not owned by locals. They are owned by foreigners, either individually or by multinational companies. Anybody who has travelled the length and breadth of this country should know that.
There is no need to spell out the names of the owners, be they of plantation companies, individual-owned commercial farms and ranches, and so-called game “conservancies’’. We all know them. These foreigners normally watch quietly as ignorant politicians incite peasants to kill each other over tiny plots of land that, in the scheme of things, amount to very little.
These owners have a lobby group called the Kenya Land Owners’ Association (Kela) which pushes for their interests (it has the usual token Africans). This Kela has not been shy about entering the constitution battle to push for the removal of clauses they consider detrimental to their interests.
There are three particular clauses they dislike in the draft. One is the setting up of the National Land Commission. The other is the provision for the maximum acreage an individual can own. The third is the reduction of the 999-year freehold titles – conveniently issued by the colonial government – to 99-year leasehold titles. Dear reader, please take note not just of the 999-year revocation but also the quiet distinction the draft has made between “freehold” and “leasehold.”
If you interrogate in detail the three Kela concerns, you will see the self-interest and the self-preservation that is driving the lobby members. Kela happens to be greatly concentrated not just in the ownership of commercial farms, but also in beach plots at the Coast, horticulture farms and so-called ‘‘safari ranches’’ all of which they acquired through 999-year freehold titles. A bona fide Kenyan citizen who has a freehold title will not be affected when the new constitution becomes operational and other titles revert to leasehold. Unfortunately for the Kela, the majority of its members are British citizens -- either individual or corporate -- who generally abhor the idea of getting local citizenship.
The Kela spokesman is a chap known as Chris Foot, a lay preacher with a church called Vineyard. He runs a company called Footsteps Safaris geared for rich Christian clients where “Dom Perignon meets the Bible,” so he is quoted as saying in an online posting as he serves vodka, gin and single-malt Scotch to one group. “My safaris are for people who want to take God on vacation with them,” he adds helpfully.
The same Foot was quoted in the April 18, 2010, issue of the Sunday Nation castigating the Committee of Experts (CoE) as “Machiavellian” and riding on “socialist rhetoric”.
It is on record that Kela had sent a memorandum to the CoE challenging the inclusion of the three clauses they are opposed to. The CoE ignored them, but the association somehow seemed to get their way with the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) on the constitution, which removed the clauses.
However, the CoE countermanded the PSC and reinstated the clauses. It was entirely within their mandate to do so. According to the Act that governs the constitution review, the PSC was required to step in only over contentious issues, namely the chapters on the Executive, Legislature/Representation, Devolution and Transitional Clauses. The Land Chapter, as far as the CoE was concerned, was not contentious.
After failing to obtain a rewrite the draft to their liking, it was to be expected that Kela would seek to link up with certain politicians on the ‘No’ side who are also violently opposed to the Land chapter. This alliance is highly significant and has a historical dimension we must all be alert to. It is really not about the Kanu regrouping some ‘Yes’ backers see in the ‘No’ cast of politicians. In reality the regrouping goes much further: back to pre-independence days. It is about the old, retrogressive Kadu. What we are seeing is the re-enactment of the same white settler interests ganging up with politicians with an old-style Kadu mentality.
In the history of Kenya, Kadu will be remembered as the party that was backed by settler interests to subvert the nationalist agenda. As in those days, so is it now. The goal of this alliance is to frustrate political and economic reform.
