Kenya: From "Harambee!" to "Nyayo!" that KANU urged central control of all regions in an effort to forestall local majimbo legislation restricting land transfer to those born in the area, and to maintain the foothold of the party's Kikuyu supporters in the Rift Valley land market".
Many settlers were returning to Britain. Kenyatta and his cronies quickly formed the Settlement Transfer Fund Schemes (STFS) and asked the British for a loan to the Kenyan government, to buy off land from colonial settlers returning to Britain. Good idea up to this point.
Britain, having been reassured by Kenyatta that those settlers still wishing to stay on in Kenya would not have their land repossessed, advanced the money. This money was used to buy settler land which was officially sold into the Kenyatta initiated Settlement Transfer Fund Schemes (STFS).
Next, Kenyatta began to give away and sell for peanuts, these government (STFS)-acquired, former colonial land parcels, to himself, his family and cronies around 1964 and 1965. This is the point when the rain started beating Kenya.
Kenyatta’s then Vice President, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, cried foul and rejected these acts of wanton land grabbing. The opportunity to choose nationalism and selflessness over greed and ethnic tendencies was lost.
Rather than address this land issue once and for all, Kenyatta opted to REPLACE the settler colonialist in land they had initially grabbed from natives. We have began harvesting the seeds of the mustard sown by Kenyatta in the 1960s. It will not be sweet at all. - Wikileaks.
WHO OWNS THE LAND?
BLOOD AND SOIL ISSUES IN THE KENYAN RIFT VALLEY
PART 1:
The passion with which millions of citizens valued their presidential vote in the
stolen 2007 presidential elections can be reflected in scenes of the bloody
post-election clashes today that engulfed Rift Valley, Nyanza, Coast, Nairobi,
Western and to a less extent in other parts of the country. Nakuru was the
latest epicenter of inter ethnic murders. The violent reactions to rigged
elections may reflect the pain of deep and historically rooted injustices some
of which predate Kenya’s independence in 1963.
They are in fact motivated and exacerbated by landlessness, joblessness,
and poverty believed to be heavily contributed towards by the prevailing
political status quo that has dominated Kenya since independence. This is a
system that has continuously perpetrated, in successive fashion, socioeconomic injustices that have been seamlessly transferred from one power
regime to the next.
The Land issue
With a fast growing population in Kenya, limited resources including land and
jobs, have severely been put in extreme pressure. Responsive political
operatives cognizant of this reality have appreciated the importance of
incorporating progressive policies that seek to aggressively address poverty,
landlessness, unequal distribution of resources and unemployment, as a
matter of priority (in their party manifestoes) if any social stability is to be
maintained in Kenya.
Without doubt, the opposition party ODM sold an attractive campaign package
that sought to address historic land injustices, unemployment, inequitable
resource sharing and poverty through a radical constitutional transformation,
under the framework of the people-tailored Bomas Constitution Draft.
ODM proposed to tackle the land problem through clauses in the Bomas draft,
captured under devolution and land chapters, with specific plans to form a
National Land Commission to address the issue of landlessness and historic
injustices of expropriation of native land by colonial and post-colonial powers.
The roots of the land conflicts in Rift Valley land lie with the former colonial
power, Britain, post-independence land policies by the Jomo Kenyatta, Daniel
Moi and Mwai Kibaki administrations; and the tendency for ethnic favouritism
and patronage by power wielders.
Colonial expropriation of native lands in Rift Valley and Coast.
In a nutshell, the British settlers literally grabbed native Maasai and Kalenjin
lands in Rift Valley and Miji-Kenda, Taita and Taveta land at the Coast. At the
Coast, there was also the added grabbing hand of the Middle-East Sultans
who lay claim to another Coastal strip. Millions of voters from thesecommunities (now deeply affected by landlessness and poverty) are today
largely drawn towards ODM’s reform policies that seek to address these
INJUSTICES.
Long before Independence, vast arable tracts of the Rift Valley were
designated as White Highlands, reserved for European settlers. The
pastoralist communities, mainly Kalenjin and Maasai, were simply moved
away.
The 1904 and 1911 Anglo-Maasai land “Agreements” details the unjust
grabbing of Maasai lands in Laikipia, Naivasha, Ngong, Karen, and tracts
along the Uganda Railway line whereby uneducated Maasai Laibons either
friendly to, or fearful of the British (christened Paramount Chiefs) like Lenana
Ole Mbatian, were cajoled and intimidated into giving away native fertile
Maasai land to the colonialists.
The words in the “Agreements” read like ……”we the undersigned, being the
Laibons of clans of Maasai, have of our own free will, decided that it is for
OUR best interests to REMOVE OUR PEOPLE, FLOCKS, AND HERDS into
definite reservations away from the Railway line and away from European
settlements…..” and “…..In conclusion, we wish to state that we are quite
satisfied with the foregoing arrangement, and we bind ourselves and our
successors, as well as OUR PEOPLE, to observe them as long as the Maasai
as a race shall exist..”
The next thing we knew was that the Maasai were crumbled into arid portions
of present day Kajiado and Narok districts. Grazing fields, and the very
pastoral lifestyle of the Maasai instantly became threatened and continues to
do so as we speak, without any restitution, compensation or pro-active
rehabilitation into another life.
100 years later, when asked to address this burning Maasai land issue,
former Lands Minister appointed by Mwai Kibaki, Mr. Amos Kimunya (now
Finance Minister), once told the Maasai that there was nothing to address
since the wise Maasai forefathers had given away their land to the British in a
BINDING AGREEMENT which continues to apply to date.
Well, similar horrid but true stories applied in Kalenjin lands of Rift Valley and
at the Coast too. Before independence, Kenyan political parties argued over
whether the native land should be returned to the indigenous population under
a federalist system of government or kept firmly under the control of a
centralised state. Needless to add, those who favoured the latter option, in the
form of the Kenya African National Union (KANU), which went on to form a
government under Jomo Kenyatta, prevailed.
PART 2: 1963 – Independence, enter Jomo Kenyatta and GEMA Landbuying companies. Trouble is, we had a majimbo constitution at
independence.
Jennifer Widner explained in her 1992 book, The Rise of A Party-State inKenya: From "Harambee!" to "Nyayo!" that KANU urged central control of all
regions in an effort to forestall local majimbo legislation restricting land
transfer to those born in the area, and to maintain the foothold of the party's
Kikuyu supporters in the Rift Valley land market".
Many settlers were returning to Britain. Kenyatta and his cronies quickly
formed the Settlement Transfer Fund Schemes (STFS) and asked the British
for a loan to the Kenyan government, to buy off land from colonial settlers
returning to Britain. Good idea up to this point.
Britain, having been reassured by Kenyatta that those settlers still wishing to
stay on in Kenya would not have their land repossessed, advanced the
money. This money was used to buy settler land which was officially sold into
the Kenyatta initiated Settlement Transfer Fund Schemes (STFS).
Next, Kenyatta began to give away and sell for peanuts, these government
(STFS)-acquired, former colonial land parcels, to himself, his family and
cronies around 1964 and 1965. This is the point when the rain started beating
Kenya.
Kenyatta’s then Vice President, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, cried foul and
rejected these acts of wanton land grabbing. The opportunity to choose
nationalism and selflessness over greed and ethnic tendencies was lost.
Rather than address this land issue once and for all, Kenyatta opted to
REPLACE the settler colonialist in land they had initially grabbed from natives.
We have began harvesting the seeds of the mustard sown by Kenyatta in the
1960s. It will not be sweet at all.
The Seroneys and other Nandi and Kipsigis leaders immediately cried foul
when Kenyatta ensued in his land grabbing tendencies. So were many
Maasai and Miji-Kenda leaders like Ronald Ngala. Their cries were feeble and
over run. Today and tomorrow, their descendants will demand justice and
restitution in an exercise that threatens to tear apart Kenya’s social fabric.
Who will shoulder the burden of the fruits enjoyed by Kenyatta and his
cronies, Moi and his cronies, and Kibaki and his latter day cronies? Will it be
the poor Kenyan taxpayer taking the bill in form of blood, and more taxes?
Going back....down memory lane..... in the immediate post-independence era,
the moment, the Seroneys and Ogingas started crying foul, and nothing was
done, we entered a dangerous phase of our nation’s socio-political path.
The political leadership of Kenya began carving out into two distinct groups.
The pro-Kenyatta land beneficiaries, sycophants and apologists were Tom
Mboya, Daniel Moi, Paul Ngei and others. Another force resisting the greedy
post-Independence governance by Kenyatta was led by Jaramogi Oginga
Odinga, and included several former KADU operatives like Ronald Ngala,
Jean Marie Seroney, Masinde Muliro, Martin Shikuku and others.Kenyatta soldiered on with his grabbing. He concurrently went ahead with the
help of Tom Mboya to change the constitution to give immense imperial
powers to the Presidency. He further began using such powers to allocate
more land to his cronies and sycophants.
His salivating appetite for Rift Valley land largely motivated his choice of Rift
Valley natives as Vice President after Oginga Odinga. First he chose a
Maasai, Joseph Murumbi, who read the scheme of land-betrayal on his
people and resigned in a huff.
Then Kenyatta selected Daniel Arap Moi, a Tugen not drawn in the Nandi and
Kipsigis land battles, as his next loyal VP. He then descended upon grabbing
Rift Valley and Coastal land in a business as usual and “mtafanya nini”
attitude that Kibaki is trying to emulate today.
Kenyatta cronies including Mbiyu Koinange, Njoroge Mungai and others
devised a clever scheme to further benefit themselves from the land
transferred from the colonialists. They formed land-buying companies through
loans which were actually funded with tax-payer money.
At the height of land buying companies, most of the power brokers acquired
huge chunks of land at the expense of the landless, who were meant to be the
initial beneficiaries of the scheme.
According to Widner (in her book), by 1971, more than 60% large-scale farms
around Nakuru and 40% of small scale settler farms, were held by Kikuyu,
who fared very well from this arrangement, at the expense of other Kenyan
communities.
Another scholar noted that "Using the political and economic leverage
available to them during the Kenyatta regime, the Kikuyu, took advantage of
the situation and formed many land-buying companies. These companies
would, throughout the 1960s and 1970s, facilitate the settlement of hundreds
of thousands of Kikuyu in the Rift Valley," wrote Walter Oyugi in Politicised
Ethnic Conflict in Kenya: A Periodic Phenomenon.
In 1969, Jean Marie Seroney, a leading Nandi politician and MP, issued the
Nandi Hills Declaration, laying claim to all settlement land in the district for the
Nandi. His demands went unheeded.
Aping the British, Kenyatta government used a policy of divide-and-rule to
neutralise such opposition by parcelling out land to other ethnic groups and
thus winning their allegiance. Daniel arap Moi, the then Tugen vice-president
was allocated the settler farms of the Lembus Forest and the Essageri Salient
to divide the Tugen from the Nandi like Seroney.
PART 3: The Grabbers of the Rift Valley
Most of the power brokers in the Kenyatta regime who formed land-buying
companies established huge farms in the Rift Valley either jointly or on their own. They included Njenga Karume, the then Chairman of Gema Holdings,
who acquired 20,000 acres in Molo where he is growing tea, coffee,
pyrethrum and potatoes and 16,000 acres in Naivasha.
GG Kariuki acquired his 5,000 acres at Rumuruti, Laikipia Division, while
former Attoney-General Charles Njonjo bought into the 100,000 acre Solio
Ranch. Don’t forget, grabbing of settler land in Central by many colonial
collaborators, at the expense of the Mau Mau fighters, was part of the
scheme.
Senior Chief Munyinge from Muiga took 400 acres. Initially, senior chief
Munyinge was allocated only 70 acres but with time he managed to acquire
330 more acres.
Mwai Kibaki acquired 20,000 acres in Nanyuki. Former MP the late Munene
Kairu has 32,000 acres at Rumuruti.
Mr Isaiah Mathenge, the former powerful Provincial Commissioner under
Kenyatta and an MP under Moi, is arguably the largest land owner in Nyeri
municipality. He owns Seremwai Estate, which is 10,000 acres.
Kibaki’s friend, Kim Ngatende, a former government engineer, has 500 acres
too. Mathenge also owns—jointly with former Provincial Commissioner Lukas
Daudi Galgalo—the 10, 000-acre Manyagalo Ranch in Meru.
Back in Rift Valley, as Jaramogi and the rest of Kenyans were saying, Not Yet
Uhuru, it was land grabbing business as usual. Land-buying companies were
heisting big. The result was big acquisitions, for instance, Munyeki Farm—
which stands for Murang’a, Nyeri, Kiambu – (4,000 acres), Wamuini Farm
(6,000 acres), Amuka Farm (2,000 acres), Gituaraba Farm and Githatha Farm
(1,000 acres each) and GEMA Holdings 12,000 acres. A few of them are
being utilized, today with the owners growing various crops ranging from
coffee, tea, maize and dairy keeping.
The other big farms include Chepchomo Farm (18, 000 acres), owned by the
former Provincial Commissioner Ishmael Chelang’a. The family of the late
Peter Kinyanjui, who was a close friend of President Mwai Kibaki and a former
DP Chairman in Trans Nzoia between 1998 and 1999 owns 1,800 acres.
In Nakuru, several politically connected individuals have acquired many acres
of prime land within the town—they include lawyer Mutula Kilonzo, who owns
an 800-acre farm for dairy farming. The immediate former Auditor General,
D. G. Njoroge, owns 500 acres, while Biwott’s Canadian son-in-law & coowner of Safaricom (Mobitelea) a Mr. Charles Field-Marsham, boasts a 100-
acre piece where he is growing roses.
D. G. Njoroge also owns the extensive Kelelwa Ranch in Koibatek, is less
than 10km from Kabarak, where he rears cattle and goats. The 10,000 acre
Gitomwa Farm—acronym for Gichuru, Tony and Mwaura—is owned by thefamily of the former Kenya Power and Lighting Company Limited (KPLC)
managing director, Samuel Gichuru. Tony and Mwaura are his sons.
Another 10,000 acre farm in Mau Narok belongs to the family of the late
Mbiyu Koinange, Kenyatta’s side-kick and powerful minister of state in the
Office of the President. His Muthera Farm (4,000ha) is leased to different
people to grow wheat, while a group of squatters is demanding a piece of it.
The owners are yet to clear the Sh7 million Settlement Transfer Fund loan.
Ford-People leader Simeon Nyachae’s Kabansora Holdings owns 4,000ha in
the area. Former Rongai MP Willy Komen’s family owns 10,000 acres —
5,000ha adjacent to Moi’s Kabarak Farm and another 4,800ha near Ngata in
Njoro.
Coast Province was not spared. Kenyatta family owns almost 15% the prime
resort land in the province, besides a huge sisal plantation spanning both
Taita and Taveta districts, safely watched by his son-in-law and former MP
Marsden Madoka, and another close friend to Uhuru Kenyatta, and current
Minister in Kibaki’s Coalition Government, Naomi Shaban.
PART 4: Kenyatta’s Land holdings
Kenya’s two former First Families and the family of President Mwai Kibaki are
among the biggest landowners in the country. The extended Kenyatta family
alone owns an estimated 500,000 acres — approximately the size of Nyanza
Province — according to estimates by independent surveyors and Ministry of
Lands officials. (This report first appeared in the Standard Newspaper report
by Mr. Otsieno Namwaya).
The Kibaki and Moi families also own large tracts, most held in the names of
sons and daughters and other close family members, all concentrated within
the 17.2 % of Kenya that is arable or valued. Remember that 80 per cent of all
land in Kenya is mostly arid and semi arid land.
According to the Kenya Land Alliance, more than a 65% of all arable land in
Kenya is in the hands of only 20 per cent of the 35 million Kenyans. That has
left millions absolutely landless while another 67 per cent on average own
less than an acre per person.
The building land crises in the country, experts say, will be difficult to solve
because the most powerful people in the country are also among its biggest
landowners. The tracts of land under the Kenyatta family are so widely
distributed within the numerous members in various parts of the country that it
is an almost impossible task to locate all of them and establish their exact
sizes.
During Kenyatta’s 15-year tenure in State House, he used the elaborate STFS
scheme funded by the World Bank and the British Government, to acquired
large pieces of land all over the country. Other tracts, he easily allocated to
his family.Among the best-known parcels owned by Kenyatta’s family, for instance, are
the 24, 000 acres in Taveta sub-district adjacent to the 74, 000 acres owned
by former MP Basil Criticos.
Others are 50, 000 acres in Taita that is currently under Mrs Beth Mugo, an
Assistant minister of Education and niece of Kenyatta. 29, 000 acres in
Kahawa Sukari along the Nairobi—Thika highway, the 10, 000 acre Gichea
Farm in Gatundu, 5, 000 acres in Thika, 9,000 acres in Kasarani and the 5,
000-acre Muthaita Farm.
These are beside others such as Brookside Farm, Green Lee Estate, Njagu
Farm in Juja, a quarry in Dandora in Nairobi and a 10, 000-acre ranch in
Naivasha. There is another 200 acres in Mombasa, and 250 acres in Malindi.
Other pieces of land owned by the Kenyatta family include the 52,000-acre
farm in Nakuru and a 20,000-acre one, also known as Gichea Farm, in Bahati
under Kenyatta’s daughter, Margaret. Besides, Mama Ngina Kenyatta, widow
of the former President, owns another 10, 000 acres in Rumuruti while a close
relative of the Kenyatta family, a Mrs Kamau, has 40,000 acres in Endebes in
the Rift Valley Province.
Uhuru owns 5,000 acres in Eldoret, 3,000 acres in Rongai and 12,000 acres
in Naivasha, 100 acres in Karen, and 200 acres in Dagoretti. A 1,000-acre
farm in Dagoretti is owned by Kenyatta’s first wife Wahu.
It is also understood that part of the land on which Kenyatta and Jomo
Kenyatta Universities are constructed initially belonged the Criticos family.
The government bought the land from him in 1972 under the Settlement
Transfer Fund Scheme and transferred to the Kenyatta family the same day
Criticos sold it to the government. Land for the two universities was
subsequently sold partly and a portion donated by the family.
PART 5: Kibaki’s and Moi’s Land Grabbing
One of President Kibaki’s earliest grabs is the 1,200-acre Gingalily Farm
along the Nakuru-Solai road. And in the 1970s, Kibaki, who was then the
minister for Finance under Kenyatta, via STFS transferred to himself, 10,000
acres in Bahati from the then Agriculture minister Bruce Mckenzie.
Kibaki also owns another 10,000 acres at Igwamiti in Laikipia and 10,000
acres in Rumuruti in Naivasha. These are in addition to the 1,600 acre Ruare
Ranch.
Just next to Kibaki’s Bahati land are Moi’s 20,000 acres although his best
known piece of land is the 1,600 Kabarak Farm on which he has retired. It is
one of the most well utilised farms in the area, with wheat, maize and dairy
cattle.The former President owns another 20,000 acres in Olenguruoni in Rift
Valley, on which he is growing tea and has also built the Kiptakich Tea
Factory (torched early 2008 Post election violence).
He also has some 20, 000 acres in Molo. He also has another 3, 000-acre
farm in Bahati on both sides of the Nakuru/Nyahururu road where he grows
coffee and some 400 acres in Nakuru on which he was initially growing
coffee.
The former President also owns the controversy ridden 50, 000 acre Ol Pajeta
Farm—part of which has Ol Pajeta ranch in Rumuruti, Laikipia. Some time in
2004, Moi put out an advert in the press warning the public that some
unknown people were sub-dividing and selling it.
Can solutions be found to address these land problems?
This is clearly a socio-political problem that requires a political solution.
It involves digging up the archives, consulting experts, policy makers, local
politicians and community elders to find a comprehensive solution.
Such formulated blueprints can then be sold to Kenyans of all creed, race,
religion and ethnicity in a publicity campaign that seeks to draw in as many
supporters as possible. A responsive political party genuinely keen to tackle
this tough problem can actually sell a comprehensive and just land reform
policy as part of its manifesto.
These must be cognizant of the constitutional implications concerned in
addressing past and present land issues.
What we are witnessing in Rift Valley may just escalate to new heights
considering the fundamental weight of the underlying blood and soil issue of
land.
Many settlers were returning to Britain. Kenyatta and his cronies quickly formed the Settlement Transfer Fund Schemes (STFS) and asked the British for a loan to the Kenyan government, to buy off land from colonial settlers returning to Britain. Good idea up to this point.
Britain, having been reassured by Kenyatta that those settlers still wishing to stay on in Kenya would not have their land repossessed, advanced the money. This money was used to buy settler land which was officially sold into the Kenyatta initiated Settlement Transfer Fund Schemes (STFS).
Next, Kenyatta began to give away and sell for peanuts, these government (STFS)-acquired, former colonial land parcels, to himself, his family and cronies around 1964 and 1965. This is the point when the rain started beating Kenya.
Kenyatta’s then Vice President, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, cried foul and rejected these acts of wanton land grabbing. The opportunity to choose nationalism and selflessness over greed and ethnic tendencies was lost.
Rather than address this land issue once and for all, Kenyatta opted to REPLACE the settler colonialist in land they had initially grabbed from natives. We have began harvesting the seeds of the mustard sown by Kenyatta in the 1960s. It will not be sweet at all. - Wikileaks.
WHO OWNS THE LAND?
BLOOD AND SOIL ISSUES IN THE KENYAN RIFT VALLEY
PART 1:
The passion with which millions of citizens valued their presidential vote in the
stolen 2007 presidential elections can be reflected in scenes of the bloody
post-election clashes today that engulfed Rift Valley, Nyanza, Coast, Nairobi,
Western and to a less extent in other parts of the country. Nakuru was the
latest epicenter of inter ethnic murders. The violent reactions to rigged
elections may reflect the pain of deep and historically rooted injustices some
of which predate Kenya’s independence in 1963.
They are in fact motivated and exacerbated by landlessness, joblessness,
and poverty believed to be heavily contributed towards by the prevailing
political status quo that has dominated Kenya since independence. This is a
system that has continuously perpetrated, in successive fashion, socioeconomic injustices that have been seamlessly transferred from one power
regime to the next.
The Land issue
With a fast growing population in Kenya, limited resources including land and
jobs, have severely been put in extreme pressure. Responsive political
operatives cognizant of this reality have appreciated the importance of
incorporating progressive policies that seek to aggressively address poverty,
landlessness, unequal distribution of resources and unemployment, as a
matter of priority (in their party manifestoes) if any social stability is to be
maintained in Kenya.
Without doubt, the opposition party ODM sold an attractive campaign package
that sought to address historic land injustices, unemployment, inequitable
resource sharing and poverty through a radical constitutional transformation,
under the framework of the people-tailored Bomas Constitution Draft.
ODM proposed to tackle the land problem through clauses in the Bomas draft,
captured under devolution and land chapters, with specific plans to form a
National Land Commission to address the issue of landlessness and historic
injustices of expropriation of native land by colonial and post-colonial powers.
The roots of the land conflicts in Rift Valley land lie with the former colonial
power, Britain, post-independence land policies by the Jomo Kenyatta, Daniel
Moi and Mwai Kibaki administrations; and the tendency for ethnic favouritism
and patronage by power wielders.
Colonial expropriation of native lands in Rift Valley and Coast.
In a nutshell, the British settlers literally grabbed native Maasai and Kalenjin
lands in Rift Valley and Miji-Kenda, Taita and Taveta land at the Coast. At the
Coast, there was also the added grabbing hand of the Middle-East Sultans
who lay claim to another Coastal strip. Millions of voters from thesecommunities (now deeply affected by landlessness and poverty) are today
largely drawn towards ODM’s reform policies that seek to address these
INJUSTICES.
Long before Independence, vast arable tracts of the Rift Valley were
designated as White Highlands, reserved for European settlers. The
pastoralist communities, mainly Kalenjin and Maasai, were simply moved
away.
The 1904 and 1911 Anglo-Maasai land “Agreements” details the unjust
grabbing of Maasai lands in Laikipia, Naivasha, Ngong, Karen, and tracts
along the Uganda Railway line whereby uneducated Maasai Laibons either
friendly to, or fearful of the British (christened Paramount Chiefs) like Lenana
Ole Mbatian, were cajoled and intimidated into giving away native fertile
Maasai land to the colonialists.
The words in the “Agreements” read like ……”we the undersigned, being the
Laibons of clans of Maasai, have of our own free will, decided that it is for
OUR best interests to REMOVE OUR PEOPLE, FLOCKS, AND HERDS into
definite reservations away from the Railway line and away from European
settlements…..” and “…..In conclusion, we wish to state that we are quite
satisfied with the foregoing arrangement, and we bind ourselves and our
successors, as well as OUR PEOPLE, to observe them as long as the Maasai
as a race shall exist..”
The next thing we knew was that the Maasai were crumbled into arid portions
of present day Kajiado and Narok districts. Grazing fields, and the very
pastoral lifestyle of the Maasai instantly became threatened and continues to
do so as we speak, without any restitution, compensation or pro-active
rehabilitation into another life.
100 years later, when asked to address this burning Maasai land issue,
former Lands Minister appointed by Mwai Kibaki, Mr. Amos Kimunya (now
Finance Minister), once told the Maasai that there was nothing to address
since the wise Maasai forefathers had given away their land to the British in a
BINDING AGREEMENT which continues to apply to date.
Well, similar horrid but true stories applied in Kalenjin lands of Rift Valley and
at the Coast too. Before independence, Kenyan political parties argued over
whether the native land should be returned to the indigenous population under
a federalist system of government or kept firmly under the control of a
centralised state. Needless to add, those who favoured the latter option, in the
form of the Kenya African National Union (KANU), which went on to form a
government under Jomo Kenyatta, prevailed.
PART 2: 1963 – Independence, enter Jomo Kenyatta and GEMA Landbuying companies. Trouble is, we had a majimbo constitution at
independence.
Jennifer Widner explained in her 1992 book, The Rise of A Party-State inKenya: From "Harambee!" to "Nyayo!" that KANU urged central control of all
regions in an effort to forestall local majimbo legislation restricting land
transfer to those born in the area, and to maintain the foothold of the party's
Kikuyu supporters in the Rift Valley land market".
Many settlers were returning to Britain. Kenyatta and his cronies quickly
formed the Settlement Transfer Fund Schemes (STFS) and asked the British
for a loan to the Kenyan government, to buy off land from colonial settlers
returning to Britain. Good idea up to this point.
Britain, having been reassured by Kenyatta that those settlers still wishing to
stay on in Kenya would not have their land repossessed, advanced the
money. This money was used to buy settler land which was officially sold into
the Kenyatta initiated Settlement Transfer Fund Schemes (STFS).
Next, Kenyatta began to give away and sell for peanuts, these government
(STFS)-acquired, former colonial land parcels, to himself, his family and
cronies around 1964 and 1965. This is the point when the rain started beating
Kenya.
Kenyatta’s then Vice President, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, cried foul and
rejected these acts of wanton land grabbing. The opportunity to choose
nationalism and selflessness over greed and ethnic tendencies was lost.
Rather than address this land issue once and for all, Kenyatta opted to
REPLACE the settler colonialist in land they had initially grabbed from natives.
We have began harvesting the seeds of the mustard sown by Kenyatta in the
1960s. It will not be sweet at all.
The Seroneys and other Nandi and Kipsigis leaders immediately cried foul
when Kenyatta ensued in his land grabbing tendencies. So were many
Maasai and Miji-Kenda leaders like Ronald Ngala. Their cries were feeble and
over run. Today and tomorrow, their descendants will demand justice and
restitution in an exercise that threatens to tear apart Kenya’s social fabric.
Who will shoulder the burden of the fruits enjoyed by Kenyatta and his
cronies, Moi and his cronies, and Kibaki and his latter day cronies? Will it be
the poor Kenyan taxpayer taking the bill in form of blood, and more taxes?
Going back....down memory lane..... in the immediate post-independence era,
the moment, the Seroneys and Ogingas started crying foul, and nothing was
done, we entered a dangerous phase of our nation’s socio-political path.
The political leadership of Kenya began carving out into two distinct groups.
The pro-Kenyatta land beneficiaries, sycophants and apologists were Tom
Mboya, Daniel Moi, Paul Ngei and others. Another force resisting the greedy
post-Independence governance by Kenyatta was led by Jaramogi Oginga
Odinga, and included several former KADU operatives like Ronald Ngala,
Jean Marie Seroney, Masinde Muliro, Martin Shikuku and others.Kenyatta soldiered on with his grabbing. He concurrently went ahead with the
help of Tom Mboya to change the constitution to give immense imperial
powers to the Presidency. He further began using such powers to allocate
more land to his cronies and sycophants.
His salivating appetite for Rift Valley land largely motivated his choice of Rift
Valley natives as Vice President after Oginga Odinga. First he chose a
Maasai, Joseph Murumbi, who read the scheme of land-betrayal on his
people and resigned in a huff.
Then Kenyatta selected Daniel Arap Moi, a Tugen not drawn in the Nandi and
Kipsigis land battles, as his next loyal VP. He then descended upon grabbing
Rift Valley and Coastal land in a business as usual and “mtafanya nini”
attitude that Kibaki is trying to emulate today.
Kenyatta cronies including Mbiyu Koinange, Njoroge Mungai and others
devised a clever scheme to further benefit themselves from the land
transferred from the colonialists. They formed land-buying companies through
loans which were actually funded with tax-payer money.
At the height of land buying companies, most of the power brokers acquired
huge chunks of land at the expense of the landless, who were meant to be the
initial beneficiaries of the scheme.
According to Widner (in her book), by 1971, more than 60% large-scale farms
around Nakuru and 40% of small scale settler farms, were held by Kikuyu,
who fared very well from this arrangement, at the expense of other Kenyan
communities.
Another scholar noted that "Using the political and economic leverage
available to them during the Kenyatta regime, the Kikuyu, took advantage of
the situation and formed many land-buying companies. These companies
would, throughout the 1960s and 1970s, facilitate the settlement of hundreds
of thousands of Kikuyu in the Rift Valley," wrote Walter Oyugi in Politicised
Ethnic Conflict in Kenya: A Periodic Phenomenon.
In 1969, Jean Marie Seroney, a leading Nandi politician and MP, issued the
Nandi Hills Declaration, laying claim to all settlement land in the district for the
Nandi. His demands went unheeded.
Aping the British, Kenyatta government used a policy of divide-and-rule to
neutralise such opposition by parcelling out land to other ethnic groups and
thus winning their allegiance. Daniel arap Moi, the then Tugen vice-president
was allocated the settler farms of the Lembus Forest and the Essageri Salient
to divide the Tugen from the Nandi like Seroney.
PART 3: The Grabbers of the Rift Valley
Most of the power brokers in the Kenyatta regime who formed land-buying
companies established huge farms in the Rift Valley either jointly or on their own. They included Njenga Karume, the then Chairman of Gema Holdings,
who acquired 20,000 acres in Molo where he is growing tea, coffee,
pyrethrum and potatoes and 16,000 acres in Naivasha.
GG Kariuki acquired his 5,000 acres at Rumuruti, Laikipia Division, while
former Attoney-General Charles Njonjo bought into the 100,000 acre Solio
Ranch. Don’t forget, grabbing of settler land in Central by many colonial
collaborators, at the expense of the Mau Mau fighters, was part of the
scheme.
Senior Chief Munyinge from Muiga took 400 acres. Initially, senior chief
Munyinge was allocated only 70 acres but with time he managed to acquire
330 more acres.
Mwai Kibaki acquired 20,000 acres in Nanyuki. Former MP the late Munene
Kairu has 32,000 acres at Rumuruti.
Mr Isaiah Mathenge, the former powerful Provincial Commissioner under
Kenyatta and an MP under Moi, is arguably the largest land owner in Nyeri
municipality. He owns Seremwai Estate, which is 10,000 acres.
Kibaki’s friend, Kim Ngatende, a former government engineer, has 500 acres
too. Mathenge also owns—jointly with former Provincial Commissioner Lukas
Daudi Galgalo—the 10, 000-acre Manyagalo Ranch in Meru.
Back in Rift Valley, as Jaramogi and the rest of Kenyans were saying, Not Yet
Uhuru, it was land grabbing business as usual. Land-buying companies were
heisting big. The result was big acquisitions, for instance, Munyeki Farm—
which stands for Murang’a, Nyeri, Kiambu – (4,000 acres), Wamuini Farm
(6,000 acres), Amuka Farm (2,000 acres), Gituaraba Farm and Githatha Farm
(1,000 acres each) and GEMA Holdings 12,000 acres. A few of them are
being utilized, today with the owners growing various crops ranging from
coffee, tea, maize and dairy keeping.
The other big farms include Chepchomo Farm (18, 000 acres), owned by the
former Provincial Commissioner Ishmael Chelang’a. The family of the late
Peter Kinyanjui, who was a close friend of President Mwai Kibaki and a former
DP Chairman in Trans Nzoia between 1998 and 1999 owns 1,800 acres.
In Nakuru, several politically connected individuals have acquired many acres
of prime land within the town—they include lawyer Mutula Kilonzo, who owns
an 800-acre farm for dairy farming. The immediate former Auditor General,
D. G. Njoroge, owns 500 acres, while Biwott’s Canadian son-in-law & coowner of Safaricom (Mobitelea) a Mr. Charles Field-Marsham, boasts a 100-
acre piece where he is growing roses.
D. G. Njoroge also owns the extensive Kelelwa Ranch in Koibatek, is less
than 10km from Kabarak, where he rears cattle and goats. The 10,000 acre
Gitomwa Farm—acronym for Gichuru, Tony and Mwaura—is owned by thefamily of the former Kenya Power and Lighting Company Limited (KPLC)
managing director, Samuel Gichuru. Tony and Mwaura are his sons.
Another 10,000 acre farm in Mau Narok belongs to the family of the late
Mbiyu Koinange, Kenyatta’s side-kick and powerful minister of state in the
Office of the President. His Muthera Farm (4,000ha) is leased to different
people to grow wheat, while a group of squatters is demanding a piece of it.
The owners are yet to clear the Sh7 million Settlement Transfer Fund loan.
Ford-People leader Simeon Nyachae’s Kabansora Holdings owns 4,000ha in
the area. Former Rongai MP Willy Komen’s family owns 10,000 acres —
5,000ha adjacent to Moi’s Kabarak Farm and another 4,800ha near Ngata in
Njoro.
Coast Province was not spared. Kenyatta family owns almost 15% the prime
resort land in the province, besides a huge sisal plantation spanning both
Taita and Taveta districts, safely watched by his son-in-law and former MP
Marsden Madoka, and another close friend to Uhuru Kenyatta, and current
Minister in Kibaki’s Coalition Government, Naomi Shaban.
PART 4: Kenyatta’s Land holdings
Kenya’s two former First Families and the family of President Mwai Kibaki are
among the biggest landowners in the country. The extended Kenyatta family
alone owns an estimated 500,000 acres — approximately the size of Nyanza
Province — according to estimates by independent surveyors and Ministry of
Lands officials. (This report first appeared in the Standard Newspaper report
by Mr. Otsieno Namwaya).
The Kibaki and Moi families also own large tracts, most held in the names of
sons and daughters and other close family members, all concentrated within
the 17.2 % of Kenya that is arable or valued. Remember that 80 per cent of all
land in Kenya is mostly arid and semi arid land.
According to the Kenya Land Alliance, more than a 65% of all arable land in
Kenya is in the hands of only 20 per cent of the 35 million Kenyans. That has
left millions absolutely landless while another 67 per cent on average own
less than an acre per person.
The building land crises in the country, experts say, will be difficult to solve
because the most powerful people in the country are also among its biggest
landowners. The tracts of land under the Kenyatta family are so widely
distributed within the numerous members in various parts of the country that it
is an almost impossible task to locate all of them and establish their exact
sizes.
During Kenyatta’s 15-year tenure in State House, he used the elaborate STFS
scheme funded by the World Bank and the British Government, to acquired
large pieces of land all over the country. Other tracts, he easily allocated to
his family.Among the best-known parcels owned by Kenyatta’s family, for instance, are
the 24, 000 acres in Taveta sub-district adjacent to the 74, 000 acres owned
by former MP Basil Criticos.
Others are 50, 000 acres in Taita that is currently under Mrs Beth Mugo, an
Assistant minister of Education and niece of Kenyatta. 29, 000 acres in
Kahawa Sukari along the Nairobi—Thika highway, the 10, 000 acre Gichea
Farm in Gatundu, 5, 000 acres in Thika, 9,000 acres in Kasarani and the 5,
000-acre Muthaita Farm.
These are beside others such as Brookside Farm, Green Lee Estate, Njagu
Farm in Juja, a quarry in Dandora in Nairobi and a 10, 000-acre ranch in
Naivasha. There is another 200 acres in Mombasa, and 250 acres in Malindi.
Other pieces of land owned by the Kenyatta family include the 52,000-acre
farm in Nakuru and a 20,000-acre one, also known as Gichea Farm, in Bahati
under Kenyatta’s daughter, Margaret. Besides, Mama Ngina Kenyatta, widow
of the former President, owns another 10, 000 acres in Rumuruti while a close
relative of the Kenyatta family, a Mrs Kamau, has 40,000 acres in Endebes in
the Rift Valley Province.
Uhuru owns 5,000 acres in Eldoret, 3,000 acres in Rongai and 12,000 acres
in Naivasha, 100 acres in Karen, and 200 acres in Dagoretti. A 1,000-acre
farm in Dagoretti is owned by Kenyatta’s first wife Wahu.
It is also understood that part of the land on which Kenyatta and Jomo
Kenyatta Universities are constructed initially belonged the Criticos family.
The government bought the land from him in 1972 under the Settlement
Transfer Fund Scheme and transferred to the Kenyatta family the same day
Criticos sold it to the government. Land for the two universities was
subsequently sold partly and a portion donated by the family.
PART 5: Kibaki’s and Moi’s Land Grabbing
One of President Kibaki’s earliest grabs is the 1,200-acre Gingalily Farm
along the Nakuru-Solai road. And in the 1970s, Kibaki, who was then the
minister for Finance under Kenyatta, via STFS transferred to himself, 10,000
acres in Bahati from the then Agriculture minister Bruce Mckenzie.
Kibaki also owns another 10,000 acres at Igwamiti in Laikipia and 10,000
acres in Rumuruti in Naivasha. These are in addition to the 1,600 acre Ruare
Ranch.
Just next to Kibaki’s Bahati land are Moi’s 20,000 acres although his best
known piece of land is the 1,600 Kabarak Farm on which he has retired. It is
one of the most well utilised farms in the area, with wheat, maize and dairy
cattle.The former President owns another 20,000 acres in Olenguruoni in Rift
Valley, on which he is growing tea and has also built the Kiptakich Tea
Factory (torched early 2008 Post election violence).
He also has some 20, 000 acres in Molo. He also has another 3, 000-acre
farm in Bahati on both sides of the Nakuru/Nyahururu road where he grows
coffee and some 400 acres in Nakuru on which he was initially growing
coffee.
The former President also owns the controversy ridden 50, 000 acre Ol Pajeta
Farm—part of which has Ol Pajeta ranch in Rumuruti, Laikipia. Some time in
2004, Moi put out an advert in the press warning the public that some
unknown people were sub-dividing and selling it.
Can solutions be found to address these land problems?
This is clearly a socio-political problem that requires a political solution.
It involves digging up the archives, consulting experts, policy makers, local
politicians and community elders to find a comprehensive solution.
Such formulated blueprints can then be sold to Kenyans of all creed, race,
religion and ethnicity in a publicity campaign that seeks to draw in as many
supporters as possible. A responsive political party genuinely keen to tackle
this tough problem can actually sell a comprehensive and just land reform
policy as part of its manifesto.
These must be cognizant of the constitutional implications concerned in
addressing past and present land issues.
What we are witnessing in Rift Valley may just escalate to new heights
considering the fundamental weight of the underlying blood and soil issue of
land.
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