Swazuri: Forever in summer amid murmurs over lifestyle

On Tuesday, December 20, 2016, a special sitting was called in Parliament. Legislators had nine urgent matters to be discussed. One of them was the conclusion of a report prepared and tabled by the House Departmental Committee on Lands. The issue was the compensation by the National Lands Commission (NLC) to a private developer for a piece of land whose ownership history was unclear.

With this case, the stage had been set for one on the most controversial reigns of a chairman of a constitutional commission. As the matter was debated and Parliament made its recommendations, a central figure - Muhammad Swazuri - appeared at the centre and hogged the limelight. Two years later, he remains firmly under the spotlight, enjoying every bit of it.

Those who knew the professor from years back say they struggle to recognise the man now. And on Monday as he appeared before the press in relation to yet another compensation matter, the man on the TV fell further from the image those who knew him had.

Kenya has over the past five years had infrastructure as one of its key pillars of development. Some of the mega projects are LAPSSET corridor, the Standard Gauge Railway and the building of mega roads. All of them need land, the National Lands Commission chaired by Prof Swazuri is at the centre of all this: valuation of the land, negotiation for pricing as well as recommendation for payments. And this, for some, has been the commission’s Achilles heel.

More valuable

For those who have worked long enough at Ardhi House and by extension the NLC’s seat of power, the only thing more valuable than a file under review by the commission is what it can be exchanged for. They say file ni pesa. The chairman has on more than one occasion been accused of impropriety. By Parliament, by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) as well as the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.

Some matters have made it to court, others have made it before the House. But few have made Swazuri lose his cool in the full glare of cameras like he did on Monday.

A visibly agitated Swazuri denied any allegation of theft before confirming the ongoing investigation by EACC on NLC on a compensation deal on a 13-acre piece of land in Nairobi’s Ruaraka.

“An investigation is not murder that we will be killed. We are ready. I am not hiding anything,” he said.

They say he has become a different man and they don’t know why.

“We have seen him in the past and see him now. He is not the same man,” Mombasa-based land rights activist Nagib Shamsan said.

At the Coast where some of the country’s oldest land grievances continue to exist and where Swazuri comes from, it was hoped the NLC would have the most impact.

But some say confidence in Swazuri and his commission is fast waning.

“People say hearings chaired by the commission are auction sessions where land grabbers come to get a feel of the community’s emotions before deciding on a price that will see all their problems disappear, and their ownership reaffirmed,” Shamsan says.

Former Mombasa nominated Senator Emma Mbura partly defends the man tasked with trying to heal on the country’s oldest wounds. “No one is perfect in this world, but Swazuri has tried,” Mbura says. She argues that all the negativity, suspicion and doubt around the chairman and his lifestyle are rumours spread by those who have not benefited from his tenure.

Title deeds

“These people, some of whom got into Ardhi House illegally, will always have something bad to say about him. From where I sit, he has tried. Swazuri helped communities at the Coast get title deeds for the first time in their history,” she says.

The common line in Lamu’s Manda Island is that Swazuriis persona non grata. A common tale is that on one of his last meetings, he was accosted by locals and was forced to flee the scene of a commission meeting on settlement of squatters on motorcycle. The people were miffed by what they termed his siding with absentee landlords.

Others within his office say he chairs the commission with an iron fist. Often taking over cases where it is believed he has interests. For instance, he took a lead role in cases in which his fellow commissioners were the lead investigators in Kilifi and Mombasa.

The Kilifi case developed into a drawn-out saga between him, the EACC, the Judiciary and Parliament, and saw him fingered by the National Assembly’s Lands Committee. The matter at hand was the ownership of 1,129 acres owned by Mombasa Cement Factory.

No evidence

As the case came up in Parliament, Swazuri wrote to the committee indicating that the cement manufacturer owned the land. The committee said there was no evidence to back this up and went on to accuse him of un-procedurally replacing the vice-chairman of the commission who had been investigating the matter - in the middle of the investigation - with a Mr Cyrus Kiogora Mburugu.

The MPs said in the report that Mr Mburugu reported directly to Prof Swazuri, which was unusual since no one else at the commission appeared to be aware of his findings.

The report recommended to the EACC that Prof Swazuriand the official, a senior lands officer at the NLC, be investigated for alleged abuse of office and that they be prosecuted if found culpable.

“There are no valid documents and no genuine chronology of land transaction entries to show how the two plots were acquired by Mombasa Cement Factory, considering that they were as a result of various amalgamations and sub-divisions to arrive at a single plot, which had grant number and no CR number,” the report noted.

They say Dubai is the new Mombasa for those seeking fun and sand.

Long way

For others, it is an investment destination. Swazuri says, like many others, he prefers the Emirates to the crowded Bofa Beach and hot banking halls in Kilifi Town. He has come a long way from the lecture halls of the University of Nairobi and the Technical University of Mombasa, a man who would speak at land forums and sign off on Sh10,000 vouchers as payment. The Swahili say, Jua likitoka, nenda uote, which loosely translates into make hay while the sun shines.

The NLC, it seems, have known no winter and have forever been in summer.

[email protected]