How safe is your plot? Expert say land grabbing poses security risk

Land grabbing is becoming a national security threat, experts have warned.

According to land development and governance expert Ibrahim Mwathane, it is increasingly becoming impossible for landowners to protect their property.

Mr Mwathane said land documents should be safeguarded to avert a major crisis.

“You cannot have the army guarding all parcels of land to ward off invaders. If there is a breakdown in protection of tenure where people acquire rights by invasion, neither the weak nor the powerful will be saved,” Mwathane added.

He warned that gangs will invade and occupy whatever land they please, citing the example of Athi River where Government land has been invaded, subdivided and sold.

Housing shortage

There have been cases of invasions of both State and private land in several parts of the country, leading to  protracted conflicts and costly demolitions at a time the country is grappling with acute shortage of housing. 

Mwathane added that some invasions have occurred right under the noses of administrators such as chiefs as well as sub-county and county commissioners.

“You cannot invade land in any part of the country without people in authority knowing. This started in Nairobi and has spread to other parts of the country. This is a cancer that is killing us,” said the land surveyor.

The forcible takeover of land is more complex and elaborate than just gangs marching into unoccupied land and hiving it off, as another land expert explained.

Wanyiri Kihoro, a land economist who also served in the commission of inquiry into the illegal and irregular allocation of public land whose findings are now known as the Ndung’u Report, explained that he too had fallen victim to grabbers.

“I lost a piece of land I had bought in Nyeri after the land ownership documents were changed at the land office. Later the forged title was used to secure a bank loan. Now we have a situation where one parcel has two title deeds. It is sickening,” he said.

The former Nyeri Town MP said many Kenyans were suffering following collusion between land grabbers and unscrupulous land officials who had disinherited thousands.

In 2004, the Ndung’u Report laid bare the extent of land grabbing in the country.

The commission chaired by Paul Ndung’u found that the powers of the President had been grossly abused by successive commissioners of lands and their deputies over the years, leading to ‘unbridled plunder.’

Land, the Ndung’u commission reported, had been turned into a currency where those with access to high offices altered documents and appropriated properties especially in urban areas.

The commission found that land meant for roads, the military, police stations, airports and hospitals was in private hands.

According to Kihoro, the culture of land grabbing and impunity was officially sanctioned by the colonial government which used its instruments to dispossess thousands of villagers.

“The precedence was set by the colonial government when it enacted the Forfeiture of Lands Act, 1955. This was meant to punish freedom fighters  whose land was taken away by the government,” he says.

By the stroke of a pen, 30,000 out of the 90,000 freedom fighters detained by the colonial government lost their land.

More land was taken over under successful governments after independence.