Gabriel Dolan
13 November 2009
Nairobi — Just about every other conflict in Kenya is over land. Last week, an MP joined a group of Catholic Justice and Peace officials to remove illegal structures from a primary school in western Kenya. Their action drew no attention.
Not so lucky were members of two lobby groups when they attempted to demolish a wall on a plot adjacent to a public beach in Mombasa. They were met by two armed groups -- one dressed in blue and representing the state, and the other in red, representing the interests of the "developer".
Neither the vigilante groups nor the police questioned the presence of the other, while the protestors strategically withdrew to plan the next move. The 3.7-acre plot is part of the family estate of a former MP , who told the media that he has a title deed, and is entitled to state protection to develop his property.
As the beach scenario unfolds, the Nation recently carried detailed features on how, immediately after independence, the Kenyatta family and friends snapped up thousands of acres in lucrative locations in the Rift Valley and suburban Nairobi.
The Business Daily showed how failure by the World Bank and the British government to provide enough funds to enable the Kenyan government to buy out the white farmers provided a loophole to the political elite to buy vast tracts at a pittance. As a result, settlement schemes intended to provide sustenance and hope for the landless became estates and retreats for the new political class.
The new regime scrambled for 100-acre plots in Kitale, Molo and Nakuru, while others opted for beach plots. In contempt of laws on settlement under the Settlement Fund Trustees, land-buying companies and cooperatives emerged and gained access to properties in complete disregard of the local communities' needs or feelings.
The granting of land as rewards for loyalty and cronyism reached pandemic levels in the Nyayo era, during which not even public toilets, parks or beaches were spared. Currently, the families of the nation's first three presidents jointly own 1 million acres, while there are as many as 200,000 suspect title deeds.
Something has gone horribly wrong. We need to return to the rule of law. Yet, the very law that we hope will redeem us was the instrument used to dispossess, divide, impoverish and oppress us in the first place. Is it any wonder then that law has become a dirty word to many Kenyans? Yet, it has the potential to be an instrument of reconciliation and reconstruction if we so wish.
Desert and entitlement are the key principles governing all property arrangements. In other words, the fact that you have a title deed should not give you absolute title over land. What matters is if the land was acquired by a just or deserving means. We must ask those with individual titles for public land if their need surpasses that of the common good.
In other words, does your right to do business eclipse those of thousands of Kenyans to comfortably have access to Mombasa's only public beach? Bringing moral values to the land debate is the first step. The second is to support the urgent passing of the national land policy (NLP) due in Parliament before the Christmas recess.
But the greatest beneficiaries of land scams will conspire to defeat the policy. It is not surprising that the Kenya Landowners Association vehemently opposes the proposed policy. I can envisage large sums of money being deposited in MPs' bank accounts as an inducement to oppose the NLP, or to absent themselves on the voting day.
Kenyans must hold their MPs accountable and consider that anything but a Yes for the policy is a betrayal and rejection of the land principles of redistribution, restitution, resettlement and banking.
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