9 February 2008
Nairobi — Mafuta Scheme in Ziwa, 50 kilometres from Eldoret Town, is one of the fertile lands that are being eyed by local people in Uasin Gishu.
Although it holds members from different communities, the majority of the settlers are actually ex-Mau Mau fighters who were settled there in the early years of independence.
Rironi Scheme, in Lessos, at the border of Uasin Gishu and Nandi North District, was another settlement scheme originally occupied by non-indigenous people. However, all its former residents fled during the 1992 ethnic clashes that hit Uasin Gishu. The local community later renamed it Kaplelach.
Kiambaa village, where 35 people were burnt to death in a church fire on New Year's Day, was largely inhabited by one populous community believed to be non-indigenous.
Its residents, however, say they bought the land in the 1960s from a white farmer who used to own it. They completed paying the debts they owed the white farmer as late as the 1990s.
Another coveted scheme is Kapchemugulmet in Moiben, 40 kilometres away from Eldoret Town.
Most of it was pieces of land occupied by the white colonialist and held good agricultural establishments.
Other settlement schemes include Ya Mumbi, Munyaka, Rokoine, Kimumu, Rurigi, Kamukunji, Huruma and others within Eldoret Town. The residents renamed the settlements they occupied after the villages and towns they had been plucked from.
However, some of these schemes have since been renamed by the local community after their inhabitants fled when the post-election violence broke out a month ago. Munyaka has been renamed Lucas Sang farm after the athlete who was killed around the estate during the post-election violence. Kiambaa has been renamed Kimnyigei farm and Kimumu renamed Kamumu.
To the local community, the renaming symbolically signifies taking back what they had lost. However, recently people from other communities have bought land, which they later gave names from their home areas. Keroka estate, some 10 kilometres from Eldoret Town, is a recently established estate largely inhabited by the Kisii community.
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