Test for Uhuru as Coast squatters, landowners await fair verdict

By Patrick Beja and Willis Oketch

Mombasa, Kenya: President Uhuru Kenyatta faces an acid test in resolving the squatter problem at the Coast, perceived to be one of the reasons for Jubilee Coalition’s poor performance in that region during the March 4 General Election.

Poverty and conflict in Mombasa, Kilifi, Kwale, Taita Taveta, Tana River and Lamu counties are blamed on the thorny matter of landlessness.

The regime faces a delicate balancing act resettling thousands of squatters and assuaging the fears of huge landowners whose leases have expired and their parcels invaded.

For a region where thousands of landless people blame their plight on wealthy landowners and clamour for redistribution, President Uhuru and his Deputy William Ruto are walking a tightrope considering the president’s family (by his own admission during the presidential election debates) have titles to at least 30,000 acres of land in Taita Taveta County.

Thursday, Ruto told a Law Society of Kenya (LSK) conference in Mombasa that the opposition CORD has no solution to the land problem, but is determined to use it to undermine the Jubilee administration.

Ruto conceded during a recent tour of the region that the land question cost the ruling coalition support, and pledged the Jubilee regime is determined to address the matter within its first term.

The land problem is a powder keg, as even the Justice Akilano Akiwumi-led Commission of Inquiry that investigated the 1997 ethnic clashes blamed skewed land allocation for the violent conflicts in Coast and Rift Valley.

President Uhuru is expected to issue the first batch of 60,000 title deeds later this month. Regular issuance of the same mainly took place during the first term of retired President Mwai Kibaki as several settlement schemes at the Coast stalled.

Reluctant

Mombasa, Kwale and Kilifi leaders have openly stated the region rejected Jubilee in the General Election because its leaders were perceived as reluctant to effectively address the land question.

Kilifi governor Mr Amason Kingi said the government is yet to act on the matter to win confidence.

“For more than 100 days in power, Jubilee government has done nothing on land issues at the Coast. The land problems have been giving residents sleepless nights in the entire Coast region,” Kingi said. In Mombasa County, leaders want thousands of squatters on the 930-acre Waitiki farm and several other areas settled.

The owner, Mr Evanson Kamau Waitiki, has threatened to kick out more than 100,000 people from the disputed land. National Land Commission (NLC) chairman Dr Mohamed Swazuri said the commission was not involved in the negotiation for the Waitiki land as it was being handled at the ministry level.

Division of land

“We will come in during the division of the land and settlement of the squatters,” Dr Swazuri explained. Another hurdle is resettling more than 10,000 people from the Mazrui family at Takaungu, Kilifi County.

In June last year, the High Court gave the Mazrui family the right to own the over 3,000-acre land causing panic among the squatters occupying it. The Mazrui family was awarded full rights to reoccupy the land after a 21-year protracted legal battle that began in 1989 when the then government cancelled the Mazruis’ title issued more than 100 years ago.

It is believed that up to 75 per cent of Kilifi residents are living as squatters on their own land, leading to the crisis. Kilifi South MP Idd Mustafa has urged President Uhuru to speed up the settlement of squatters.

He wants the government to settle more than 800 squatters living on a disputed 100-acre land at Mtwapa immediately. “We are awaiting the president to provide a lasting solution to the nagging land problems in Kilifi County,” Mustafa said.

In Taita-Taveta, President Uhuru is expected to address the massive invasion of private land by squatters following a land crisis allegedly caused by influential families who own large chunks of land.

They include the Kenyatta family, which owns 30,000 acres and former MP Basil Criticos, who has more than 3,000 acres.

Swazuri has confirmed that Criticos’ land lease expired in January, but he applied for renewal although squatters are scrambling for it.

“The land is still owned by Mr Criticos as he has applied for renewal of the lease. The squatters should wait until the application is processed,” he said.