To solve perennial land problems, we must elect leaders who will solve it

What you need to know:

  • Innocent Kenyans often fall victim of government-directed evictions, having bought land from fraudsters who knew all along the State could reclaim it.

Lack of political goodwill, greed, corruption and bad governance at the land registry have led to many land disputes stalling in the courts for decades.
Innocent Kenyans often fall victim of government-directed evictions, having bought land from fraudsters who knew all along the State could reclaim it.
However, nothing is done to the top politicians, government officials, wealthy individuals and corporations named in various reports as beneficiaries of illegally acquired public utility land.

In collaboration with rogue National Land Commission and Ministry of Lands officials, trustees, working in cahoots with law firms, have conned Kenyans of millions of shillings, yet they roam free, leaving their victims at the mercy of overwhelmed courts.

Impunity, abuse of office and divisive politics have marred the implementation of reports such as TJRC, Ndung’u and Akiwumi, which clearly outline in their recommendations due process of reclaiming public land and action to be taken against the grabbers.
The institutions mandated by the Constitution to investigate and prosecute those individuals named in the land grabs have failed Kenyans in that no such case is pursued to its logical conclusion. They dupe us with high-profile arrests, which end up in collapsed cases.
It pains me a lot to see families being thrown out of their homes during demolitions to end up as squatters in their own country, with neither a resettlement plan nor compensation.
In the next election, let us elect politicians who will resolve this perennial problem of land tenure.
Antony J. Ong’injoh, Trans Nzoia