Land grabbing has always been with us

With so much outrage over Langata Road Primary School, you would think it was the only stolen land in the republic.

What began as a protest ended as a global media event. A day later the political class turned shame into fame with apologies from everyone but the land grabber.

Pundits claim that land grabbing is back but truth is it never went away. Grabbers, brokers and dealers just lay low waiting for the right signals from State House.

The Nyayo grabbing survivors went into hibernation with their titles and resurfaced when the climate was right. They are joined by a new class of grabbers — the ugatuzi branch — a whole new generation of thieves, products of the 2010 Constitution.

Of course their job is made easy when the NLC and Lands Cabinet Secretary spend a year fighting each other instead of corruption. When two elephants fight it’s the land that suffers.

The courts, too, are playing their part with a High Court Judge in Mombasa ruling that a ‘private developer’ should continue building his luxury hotel on State House land.

Land grabbing is bigger, bolder and more dangerous than ever. Let me cite an example. As the Langata wall was being constructed over the Christmas period, another wall was being erected on a parcel of Kenya Railways land within a stone’s throw of where I call home.

However, this ‘developer’ was confronted by another ‘investor’ who claimed the same piece of railways land. The plot thickens.

Eighty metres away and still on KR land a sign of intent to build a fuel station was proudly unfurled. For the record, one of these gentlemen collects his salary in Parliament while the other two carry flags that came with the advent of devolution.

BEHAVED LIKE GOVERNMMENT

Kenya Railways has so much idle land that it has behaved like a parallel government for decades selling, leasing and speculating with its alienated land. With the ‘property’ consolidated, the highway authority suddenly issued newly drawn road maps. 

Now, thousands of citizens living in informal settlements on one side of the road are threatened with eviction to facilitate the ‘development’ by these three ‘enterprising gentlemen’ on the other side. If Cabinet Secretary Kamau does not intervene, then the outcome will most likely make Langata Road protests look like child’s play.

In this and other matters, the NLC shows little leadership. Mr Swazuri was busy renewing the Kenyatta family lease on 30,000 acres in Taita-Taveta on grounds that they were utilising it well.

However, that reasoning would hardly meet constitutional requirements or impress the landless people in the county, now told to wait another 99 years before acquiring a portion.

Article 14 of the NLC Act mandates the Commission to review all grants of public land and to establish their propriety and legality within five years. Two years have passed and they have made very little shape at recovering the 200,000 illegal allocations in the country.

Mr Swazuri and CS Ngilu may be reconciled but neither institution is willing to do anything other than PR to address the land question. Langata showed that only public pressure moves this government.

[email protected] @GabrielDolan1