Why are land-grabbers and thieves suddenly emboldened to claim loot?

The Lang’ata Road Primary School saga brings home to us the stark fact that the culture of land-grabbing is back with the Jubilee administration.

That might not be surprising. Once President Daniel arap Moi’s Kanu regime left the scene to be succeeded by President Mwai Kibaki’s Narc and then PNU regimes, the notorious land-grabbers exposed by the Ndung’u Commission of Inquiry decided to lie low.

The problem was that the Kibaki regime, after all the lofty words and appointment of a commission of inquiry into land grabbing, decided not to implement the report. Reclaiming land that had been stolen from the public would have been too much even for President Kibaki because nobody in a position of power and authority — including many close to him and right in the inner sanctums of his political machinery and government — would have been spared.

We are now paying the price of refusing to take action, for the advent of the Jubilee coalition regime of President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto has emboldened land-grabbers to come out of the woodwork and reclaim the parcels they had let lie undeveloped for more than 10 years.

KANU REGIME SUCCESSOR

Yes, in Jubilee, the land sharks have a friendly government they know will wink at their nefarious activities because it is the true successor to the Kanu regime.

Jubilee has land-grabbing imprinted in its DNA and genetic code, going back to the Jomo Kenyatta regime that licensed the mighty and powerful to alienate all the land they fancied, on to the Moi misrule when every public asset was fair game.

“Is it your mother’s?” was the standard response to any well-meaning citizen who questioned the theft of public property.

The philosophy that those of power and influence have inalienable right to the public kitty and nobody has a right to ask questions on matters not of direct concern is back.

The police tear-gassing of protesting school children on Lang’ata Road yesterday reveals the guiding principles of a regime laying the groundwork for a return to Kanu-style oppression under the excuse of fighting terrorism.

CRAFTING REPRESSIVE LAWS

It is busy crafting repressive new laws and reviving statutes from the colonial occupation to gag the independent media, limit freedom of expression, silence dissenting voices, curtail freedom of assembly, reintroduce detention without trial, and throw pesky bloggers and social media commentators into jail.

That is what dictatorships do to shroud their excesses in secrecy and give themselves freedom to rob, loot, rape, and plunder without being questioned.

The land theft provides a classic example of grabbers who had lain low resurfacing to lay claim to illegally acquired goods they had not managed to use or sell.

It is not the only case involving public schools, social halls, playgrounds, parks, and other amenities in the capital city.

The irony here is that Nairobi County is under a Cord regime headed by Governor Evans Kidero, who cannot escape responsibility for the looting mania taking place right under his nose. New authorisations for development on land with dubious titles are being processed by the county government.

Expression of interest: Here I speak with particular personal interest because a playground I grew up on — between Gandhi Avenue and Kisauni Road in Nairobi West — has recently also been hidden behind an ugly stone fence.

MONKEY BARS

The field on which many a local child climbed the monkey bars, rode the merry-go-ground, swung on the swings, and romped in the sandpit was grabbed by land thieves in the mid-1990s.

The area MP, then Mr Raila Odinga, led a mighty protest that saw the buccaneers run for cover. They abandoned the field, but the City Council never bothered to secure it and put back the swings and stuff that had been uprooted. It remained an open field, until last year, when the grabbers came back and fenced it. Alerts to City Hall have elicited no interest.

The Cord opposition led by Mr Odinga must, therefore, take a share of the blame for the return of land-grabbers in Nairobi, unless it can show that Governor Kidero is not toeing the party line as, maybe, his loyalties lie elsewhere.

@MachariaGaitho on Twitter. [email protected].