Kisii County faces land crisis as population balloons

A section of Kitutu Masaba, in Nyamira County. Conflicts on sub division of land in families end up at the Kisii Land and Environment Court (Eric Abuga)

KISII, KENYA: The undulating green hills give Kisii County a perfect view. From a far, Kisii looks like a farming community at peace with itself.

The tea, maize and coffee plantations spread as far as the eye can see. But underneath this beauty lies social and economic trouble.

The County is facing a land crisis as the population balloons, leading to multiple disputes blamed for killings in the region.

Since time immemorial, land has been an emotive issue in the region with polygamous families embroiled in legal battles.

In Gusii, most murder cases have been linked to unresolved land tussles. The majority of the cases in the Kisii Environment and Land Court are due to the killings.

There are more than 1,500 unresolved cases in the court.

Here, women with sons are favoured over those with daughters when it comes to inheritance of property. This has forced most women to adopt boys to be considered in the sub-division of land in the family.

In the past, in polygamous families, the first wife would be given more land than the second wife.

Land experts urge residents to shun the belief that having many sons means security of land and property against invasion by relatives.

The youth believe that the traditional system where fathers divide and share out land among their sons is outdated.

Law Society of Kenya South Nyanza Chairman Denis Nyatundo notes that land cases have stalled because of a High Court decision barring magistrates’ courts from arbitrating the disputes.

“Let the Land Commission handle the matter as a project. The issue of multiple buyers is a creation of some officers in the lands office. The office seems not have a back-up in handling some of the cases,” Mr Nyatundo says.

He regrets that most land disputes lead to murder of some parties. “We ought to find a way to end such incidents.”

Kisii High Court Deputy Registrar Virginia Karanja says that some of the succession cases end up as criminal matters as 90 per cent of title deeds and successions certificates are forgeries.

“We are handling succession cases that should have been resolved more than 40 years ago,” she says, and regrets that most litigants in the cases end up being murdered by their kin.

“This could be the reason why we receive more than 1,000 new land cases every year. The community should be sensitised on conflict resolution mechanisms to avoid a number of these ligations and possible killings,” she says.

In March, three High Court judges were expected to determine at least 300 pending land cases in two weeks.

Migori’s Justice George Ongondo and Justices Mohamed Kullow and Jane Onyango of his Narok and Kericho, respectively, were set to clear a backlog of 2,132 land cases in Kisii Law Courts.

The judges were to hear at least 10 cases every day. In May, they finalised 1,229 land cases. Before the service week there were more than 2,133 land cases.

Karanja says that the judges managed to finalise more than 50 per cent of the back log. “We should note that we sometimes lack defense files because petitioners lost interest and abandoned the matters.”