Mpeketoni residents speak

About 40 kilometres in the North of Tana Delta District lies the small town of Mpeketoni.

It is an agricultural hub feeding the entire Lamu County, and is estimated to host more than 50,000 people according to the 2009 Census report. It is now on the limelight after attacks, this week, that left at least 60 people dead.

A huge percentage of the population comprise members of Kikuyu community with few Kambas also settling in Mpeketoni among the indigenous Bajuni.

The ethnic composition of the area has been a source of tension in the past, but it is now sharply in focus following claims by President Kenyatta that the attacks were ethnically motivated.

Mpeketoni was created as a settlement in the late 1960s and early 1970s by President Jomo Kenyatta to settle landless Kenyans, mainly from Murang’a and other parts of the former Central Kenya.

The settlement, which was originally occupied by a few Bajuni and Watta, was centred around a fresh water lake named after the first President of Kenya.

Mzee Kimani Njogu Kimani, 65, recalls the early 1970s while in Nyandarua when they were informed by the area chief that the landless people who wished to be settled in the Coast to register themselves.

Kimani said they were ferried from Nyandarua to Mpeketoni where they were allocated a huge chunk of forest land by the then PC Eliud Mahihu.

Lazaro Kagwe, who owns ten acres of land at Mpeketoni has dismissed claims that they left the central Kenya to Coast Province to grab land. “Those calling us grabbers are jealous because we are hard working people,” he says.

The Mpeketoni scheme is fully occupied with 3,480 settlement plots covering an area of 14,224 hectares, with each settler occupying ten acres. But according to the TJRC report released in 2012, tension has been building up in the area because local people feel the land was irregularly taken away.

The TJRC report says the land was unequally distributed with Kenyans from upcountry getting the lion share as opposed to those from the Coast. “As a result, many members of coastal communities remain landless,” it said.

In Lamu, for instance, where the attacks took place, establishment of settlement schemes in the 1970s were established in a dubious manner and land owners were not informed or compensated for their land.

“To make matters worse, some of the members of coastal communities who received letters of allotment had their land subsequently illegally misappropriated from them, despite having paid all the fees demanded for allotment to the Ministry of Lands,” the report states.

Cornered monkey

The commission found that in the then Lamu District, 10,000 members of the Kikuyu community were settled between 1969 and 1979.

Lamu residents had also blamed the Government for failing to consult them during the construction of the Lamu port, similarly settling more people from upcountry in the a section of the said land.

Tough-talking Lamu dwellers had asked the Government to ‘take a step’ to avert loss of lives following reports that persistent fights in other parts of the coastal region was a result of land disputes.

“The government should take a step before there is loss of life because we hear that people from other places are fighting each other, but we have not fought. We know that a monkey is cowardly but when cornered, it can finish you...”one of the residents told TJRC commissioners.

Indeed, 59-year-old Mohammed Mbwana Shee, a Bajun said together with the Watta, Sanya and Somali communities, they were the first settlers in Mpeketoni. “We the Bajun and Watta communities were farming at Ziwa La Mkunguyani in the late 1960,”he recalls.

He said they  later fled the area following the shifta war. In 1970, security was restored after the government deployed the GSU officers but the indigenous people were hesitant to
return to their ancestral land.

The chairman of Shungwaya Welfare Association Mbwana the Kikuyus  from Tanzania were
resettled in the area in 1972 by former President Kenyatta. He conceeds that even the Bajun were allocated land  but majority sold it as they still feared what they experienced during the Shifta war.

Rishad Aman denies claims that land injustices are to blame for the chaos and also doubts if any local leader was involved.

He, however, said they were concerned that despite expressing their warm reception to people from upcountry, they were now displacing the
locals.

“We don’t have any problem with those who were settled at Mpeketoni, but they are now taking over everywhere,” he notes.

Lamu County Commissioner Stephen Ikua denied claims that land in Mpeketoni was distributed to members of one community leaving the indigenous locals landless.

“The locals were not farming, hence they opted to sell their land to people from other regions,”he noted.

He said the demand for land in the area has increased due to the ongoing construction of the Lamu Port, which has also seen the prices of land sky rocket, adding that for the last five years the government has issued more than 25,000 title deeds to the local indigenous communities.

He attributed the recent attacks to tribal politics  propagated by some politicians.