Kilifi squatters sell land at throwaway prices after receiving title deeds

A section of squatters in Kilifi County who recently received title deeds issued by President William Ruto have sold their land and relocated to private farms.

On Tuesday, local political leaders said they were grappling with increased cases of the beneficiaries selling land at throwaway prices.

For years, leaders and land activists in Kilifi and other parts of Coast have raised concerns over the increased number of the so-called professional squatters.

Professional squatters invade private farms, and once they are settled by the state, they sell the land and move to other empty parcels.

Kenya Land Alliance (KLA) coast chapter chairman Nagib Shamsan said the squatters are armed groups that violently invade private farms.

Kilifi Governor Gideon Mung’aro and Malindi MP Amina Mnyanzi said that it was disheartening that some families prepare sale agreements before they get titles. 

They spoke during the issuance of the titles to a section of the more than 5,000 beneficiaries in the Msabaha area, Malindi sub-county, Kilifi County.

Mung'aro warned the residents against selling their land at throwaway prices after receiving their documents.

He said a committee comprising governors of Kilifi, Mombasa, Kwale, Lamu, Tana River and Taita Taveta counties and Senate Speaker Amason Kingi, together with Cabinet Secretaries Hassan Joho (Mining) and Salim Mvurya (Sports), had been formed by President Ruto to identify more land to resettle squatters.

“There are many title deeds that have been processed for our people, and I will be going round to distribute them to the beneficiaries. We also have many other parcels of land that we are identifying so that they can be bought and people settled,” he said. 

Amina said that local leaders should utilise the working relationship with Ruto to ensure that all squatters are resettled to address the landlessness problem. 

“We are going to utilise our good relationship with President Ruto so that we can get more development to our region and resolve the squatter problem for good. It has been a campaign tool for many years, but we are very confident Ruto will end that,” she said. 

Nominated MCA Betty Kache urged families to maintain peace and cooperation once they received their land documents, citing rampant cases of family feuds over land where the elderly are killed for their children to forcefully inherit land. 

“Let these title deeds be a unifying factor in our families, and let no one sell their land without involving other family members because many families have been torn apart because of greed by some of their members who sell land at throwaway prices and leave the rest of the family suffering,” she said.