Controversy hits Uhuru’s directive on issuance of titles for colonial villages

NYERI, KENYA: President Uhuru Kenyatta's Madaraka Day directive for the issuance of title deeds to residents in colonial villages is being opposed by members of the community.

A resident of Iruri Colonial Village in Mathira has dragged the National Land Commission and Nyeri county government to court claiming that the two bodies are dishing out land to non-deserving cases.

The petitioner, Richard Muriuki, the chairman of Iruri Village Squatters, want the Environment and Land Court to prohibit the NLC and the county government from issuing title deeds to non-residents of the village.

Muriuki argued that the secrecy with which the county and NLC were undertaking the exercise was deliberately intended to exclude the bonafide beneficiaries from the exercise - to benefit strangers.

"The respondents have to date not disclosed to residents of the village the criteria used to identify the rightful beneficiaries," he said in a petition to the land court.

He added that the residents had reliably established that the ongoing alienation of the land would benefit strangers who are not residents of the village.

As a result, Muriuki moved the court to issue a declaration that any alienation of the land at Iruri colonial village without the participation of residents and to persons other than the residents of the village was unconstitutional.

Further, Muriuki, who said in his suit that he was acting on behalf of 102 residents, wants Justice Lucy Waithaka to order NLC and county government to disclose the beneficiaries of the land.

He also wants the court to cancel title deeds that have been issued out illegally and have the land reverted to the county for proper alienation.

During his Madaraka Day address President Uhuru ordered Lands Cabinet Secretary Jacob Kaimenyi to commence surveying of the villages and issue the residents with titles.

The village were established by the colonial government as a concentration camp during the liberation war.

However, a number of the would be beneficiaries have protested being locked out of the title issuance in favour of government officers and tycoons.