By John Orwa

I was strolling across a small village in Rarieda, Siaya County last week when I came face-to-face with the reality of injustices in land governance. I bumped into a crowd seated under a tree, listening keenly to an old man. The senior citizen was frantically waving a bundle of papers in the air as he explained a point. And he was angry.

A local chief had forcefully annexed part of his land allegedly to give room for a road to course through.

Next to speak was a 78 year old widow. An influential village tycoon had snatched her land and forced her to sign transfer documents. Another worried local wanted to know if the new land laws will allow the government to repossess his beach plot lying a long Lake Victoria.

A Worried Man

The meeting convened by a local civil Society organisation — the Community Initiatives Action Group (CIAG –K) to educate the villagers on the new land legislation, was quickly becoming tense as more case studies of land injustices came up.

The organization’s executive director, Mr Chris Owalla later told me the Rarieda meeting even had fewer cases.

He had held similar meetings in Ugenya, Gem, Alego-Usonga and Bondo constituencies and the hundreds of complaints filed by villagers left him a worried man.

Many villagers do not know what community land means and the role of chiefs and their assistants in handling land problems under the new laws.

Yet the Siaya County cases could just be a tip of the iceberg of a looming disaster in the land sector ever since the new constitution was promulgated in 2010.

Evidence from upcountry shows that influential personalities are capitalising on the stalemate paralysing operations of the National Land Commission (NLC) to grab as much public and private land as they can.

Women And Orphans

The National Land Commission Act has been passed by Parliament and officials picked by the President but the process of gazetting the names hit a snag following a court case. The latest information from Kenya Land Alliance and some legal experts, indicates that there is nothing stopping the President from clearing the hurdle to allow the commission to start its work.

It has become apparent that there are growing land related conflicts across the country with women and orphans being the main culprits as individuals rush to amass wealth before the new land laws are implemented.

With the environment already soiled by political tensions ahead of the general elections due next year, Land ownership is becoming an explosive and thorny issue.

Already, access to communal land is a source of serious conflict in parts of Northern Kenya and tension is spreading. We have seen neighbouring communities butcher each other over land in Tana River and the Rift Valley as the government slumbers.

It is annoying to note that the Lands Act, the Land Registration Act and the National Land Commission Act, which are meant to cover Land governance, remain largely on paper.

Of great concern is the delay in the enactment of the Community Land Act has worsened the situation with land speculators seizing the confusion to grab land that ought to be under community ownership.

The National Land Commission, if granted the legitimacy it needs, will help address the historical land injustices and help protect the grabbing of community land. In Siaya County, locals allege politicians have gone into land grabbing spree. A communal sports ground in Bondo, they claim is already taken.

Community lands Act, if enacted will help address historical land injustices Residents of Rarieda, for example, say they do not know how to differentiate community land from private and public land.

Moreover, it is not lost to Kenyans that the land reforms, which were part of the Agenda IV of the National Accord and Reconciliation Agreement (2009), could pose the biggest challenges as the country goes into the elections next year.

Presidential Campaigns

Kenyans are expected to play a bigger role in the debate on the Community Lands Act, which has currently been shelved, pending more consultations and input from the public.

But the truth is that the majority still does not know what this Act means and how it will impact on the land ownership. Besides a few civil society groups conducting civic education on the matter, the government is largely quiet, perhaps, too engrossed in the ongoing Presidential campaigns.

What we need now is intensive public education targeting those in the villages where communal land conflicts are a ticking timebomb.

The writer works at the Standard Media Group.

joywa@standardmedia.co.ke