Politicisation of land issues is detrimental

Events playing out in the public following last week's revocation of title deeds in Lamu County by the President are a pointer to a society going awry.

At the centre of the said controversial land allocations in Lamu is Mr James Orengo, the former Lands Minister.

In an attempt to exonerate himself, he has come up with a list of names of senior Government officials he claims not only head powerful cartels that are responsible for land grabbing in the country, but are also beneficiaries of illegal land allocations.

With the names of the President, the Deputy President and Leader of Opposition coming out in negative light, the issue has taken a political angle, with every party seeking to bloody the others' nose.

In the midst of name calling, blame and counter blame, the root cause of the land problem in the country will not be addressed.

Mr Orengo's belated tabling of a list of people he alleges are land grabs smacks of dishonesty viewed against the fact that he waited until he was adversely mentioned before making the claim. His allegations will be a hard sell in the absence of concrete evidence to back them up.

Equally dishonest is the Cabinet Secretary for Land, Charity Ngilu's belated claim that the former Prime Minister in the Coalition Government and the Orange Democratic Movement, to which she was a member at the time, were party to secret land allocations.

She needs to provide irrefutable evidence to back her claims.

Unless the Government comes out very clearly to support its case, which, we hope will address the land equation starting from the independence era, its efforts will only amount to rearranging chairs on the deck.

What is coming out is that there is very little political goodwill in tackling the vexing and perennial land problem in the country.

While efforts to streamline operations at the Lands ministry are welcome, they should not be used to settle political scores.

The Cabinet Secretary for Lands will be taken on her word not to spare anybody, irrespective of rank, in the purge on illegal allocations.