Moral questions emerge in land redistribution debate

Land redistribution has been a thorny issue since independence. [PHOTO: FILE]

By Juma Kwayera

KENYA: Land ownership has become a thorny election issue that could dominate the presidential campaigns to the end.

This time focus has shifted to idle land unlike in the past when communities would arise against each other after accusations of unfair land acquisitions by their kinsmen.

Land ownership by individuals has become the most talked about topic and points to possibilities of the election turning out to be a referendum on the emotive issue that defines class contradictions in Kenya.

The sensitivity of the issue prompted Inspector-General of Police David Kimaiyo and chairman of National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) Mzalendo Kibunjia to dissuade politicians from using the matter for political gain lest it inflames ethnic passions. Presidential aspirants have scoffed at Mr Kimaiyo’s order saying the issue ranks high in party manifestos.

Opinion remains divided on whether land should be kept out of election discourse.

“Land is a key item of Agenda Four of the National Accord and should have been addressed conclusively before the elections got underway. It is, therefore, only fair that parties communicate clearly what they are going to do when they ascend to power,” explains former ODM national elections board secretary,  Joseph Misoi. He questioned the motive of Kimaiyo and Kibunjia who want the debate postponed.

Campaign agenda

The Ndung’u Commission report on land acquisition during the Kanu regime indicts majority of the leaders seeking elective positions, but the focus currently is on TNA presidential candidate Uhuru Kenyatta, his running mate William Ruto, CORD’s Raila Odinga, Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka, Ford Kenya leader Moses Wetang’ula and Amani presidential candidate Musalia Mudavadi who have been trading barbs over questionable land ownership.

Former Mathira MP and Nyeri County TNA senate candidate, Ephraim Maina, argues that land can only become an issue if it is owned illegally.

“Kenyans should not look back in history to settle political scores. It will not have an effect on the presidential poll outcome. Owning a million acres of land legally should not be an issue because there is nothing wrong,” says Maina.

Raila has said Uhuru owns land the size of a province but has not adduced any evidence. He has also been accusing Ruto of illegal land acquisition referring the case in court over ownership of a 100-acre land in Uasin Gishu. The Jubilee duo have denied the allegations and responded in kind accusing Raila of fraudulently acquiring the Kisumu Molasses Plant and revisited the Mavoko cemetery land scandal that emerged when Musalia Mudavadi was Minister for Local Government.

“Nobody should tamper with what is owned legally,” insists Maina.

The debilitating poverty among squatters has not gone unnoticed as large landowners have been petitioning President Kibaki, himself a large-scale land-owner to address the issue.

President Kibaki’s long time friend and political ally, Mr John Keen has said owners with under-utilized land should donate to the landless.

Keen has offered 2,630 acres of land he owns in Kilifi, Coast province, to the indigenous people. It will be the second time Keen is donating land after he voluntarily allowed Kenya Wildlife Service to use 300 acres of land he owned next the Nairobi National Park to ease human-wildlife conflict.

“The calls for leaders to account for the land they own are genuine. It is both a moral and integrity issue. We can no longer ignore the lamentations of the poor people,” says Keen.

Acts of kindness

The gesture is expected to pile pressure on leaders with huge land to give some to the landless following in the footsteps of fallen former Kimbaa MP Njenga Karume, who too excised a section of his estate, Likia Farm in Molo, Rift Valley. In 2009, a ‘Good Samaritan’ who served in the Kanu government sold 800 acres to the Government to resettle internally displaced people in Maweni settlement scheme, Laikipia County.

Resettlement of landless has often been top of agenda since independence, but degenerates into ethnic clashes at every election cycle.

The Jubilee coalition tackled the issue during the launch of its manifesto, saying the disparity in land ownership is a result of incomplete land adjudication.

In his speech, Ruto said individuals own only 12 per cent of land while the State has 27 per cent and remaining 81 per cent is communal or trust land. However, the speech was short on details of how much of the communal land is agriculturally productive.

Unlike in the past when communities clashed over land at election time, this time round individual or corporate ownership and reforms have taken centre-stage as integrity and morality comes into focus.

In all the allegations, there have been no material evidence of wrongdoing adduced, save for moral considerations in social environment where half the population lives in poverty and sizeable number of the electorate are squatters.

It against this backdrop that outgoing Limuru MP Lewis Nguyai, an Uhuru ally, wondered whether it had become a crime to own land. Nguyai told CORD leadership not to criminalise land ownership, but the latter persists in its quest to have historical injustices discussed.