Michael Mundia Kamau
P.O. Box 58972
00200 City Square
Nairobi
Kenya

24th May 2004

        THE SCRAMBLE AND PARTITION OF KENYA

One of the highlights of President Mwai Kibaki’s Ukambani trip in the
week of 16th May 2004, was his warning of repossession of idle land by the
Kenya government. President Kibaki however once again failed to back to his
words with a firm government policy, in a country indeed faced with a land
crisis.
President Kibaki’s statement can also not be treated lightly, coming
hot on the heels of an attempt to forcibly evict landowners in the locality,
led by none other than an assistant minister in his own government. A similar
casual pronouncement by former President Daniel arap Moi towards the
end of his reign, is what precipitated rebellion and plunder by residents of
Nairobi’s Kibera slums, when Moi took sides with the tenants and his
then Energy Minister, Raila Odinga, in a rent dispute.

President Kibaki himself is the owner of a 1,700 acre prime piece of
land in Naro Moru, and appears to be inviting trouble to his very own door
step, by inciting land-less Kenyans to take the law into their hands. The matter
of land reform in Kenya therefore requires to be approached with utmost
caution. Any initiative to institute much needed land reform in Kenya,
must involve the people of Kenya as a whole. If second generation land
reform in Kenya is to take the shape of the repossession of the White Highlands
at independence, then the division of land parcels, compensation of the
owners, loan schemes and repayment timetables, inter alia, have to be clearly
spelt out. President Kibaki and former President Daniel arap Moi and his
3,000 acre Kabarak farm, are two examples of beneficiaries of independent
Kenya’s first generation land reform. The Kenyatta Family’s Gachewa Farm is
another example.

Second generation land reform in Kenya is long overdue, at a time when
the population has grown disproportionately. Land laws are too casual and
must be reformed to benefit the vast majority of land-less Kenyans. Former
Taveta MP, Basil Criticos, walked out on Kenya and his obscenely huge 40,000
acre Taveta ranch in a care free manner, and has shamelessly reappeared back
from America to reclaim it, without as much of a word from the government.
For a start, Basil Criticos’ Taveta Farm ought to be nationalised by
President Kibaki’s government, if it wants to demonstrate it’s seriousness about
land reform.

And indeed this must be so. The common man has been the backbone of
Kenya over the past 40 years, and is yet to be rewarded for this. Denied the
opportunities that Presidents Kenyatta, Moi and Kibaki had in terms of
acquiring properties, assets and land, the common man has been forced
to etch out bare survival on the edge, through micro-entrepreneurial
actvities like hawking and farming. The people who stayed behind and kept Kenya
going all those years feel utterly betrayed when they see reward
reapportioned to the likes of Basil Criticos. The people who stayed behind and kept
Kenya going all those years, feel deep anguish when told that dual
citizenship may be allowed for by a new Kenyan constitution, thus giving the
unproductive Diaspora, a free hand to benefit both ways.

Kenya cannot be said to belong to anyone in particular. Five years ago,
the media carried a highly charged debate involving Kenyans of African,
Asian and White descent, that tackled the ownership of Kenya. An African of
Kikuyu descent called for the immediate expulsion of all Asians and Whites
from Kenya and the reclamation of stolen lands. One H.W. Blunt, a
White-Kenyan from Nakuru, responded by giving a graphic account of the history of
the East African region dating back to the 15th century, and demonstrated
how the Kikuyu originated from the Congo, came to their current Kenyan
location in the 15th century, and dispossessed the Gumba of their land. H.W.
Blunt’s argument brought the debate to an end.

During the campaigns for the 1992 general elections, there was also a
humuorous twist when former President Daniel arap Moi said that Ahmed
Bamarhriz, a founding member of the Forum for the Restoration of
Democracy (FORD), was not a Kenyan, and that he should go back to Yemen.
Bamarhriz responded by saying that he would do so by boarding the next flight to
Yemen, but added that Moi would also be concurrently expected to board
the next flight to Sudan. Large parts of Malindi are also owned by
Italians, which makes Kenya no man’s land in particular.

Kenya belongs to those who want to make it their country regardless of
race, creed or background. It belongs to those who will stand by it, and not
bolt at the slightest threat of tribulation. It is this Kenya that President
Kibaki and his government should seek to identify, support and grow, in
Kenya’s quest for second generation land reform. President Kibaki’s
government is called upon to present a comprehensive and simplified
blueprint of Kenya’s second generation land reform program.



Michael Mundia Kamau