The major cause of land issues in Kenya

  

Date Posted: 4/11/2012 1:15:47 PM

Posted By: gidyon  Membership Level: Bronze  Total Points: 45

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In the pre-colonial times land was mainly owned communally. In the colonial period one of the main reasons as to why the Whiteman colonized Africa was for the supply of raw materials for their industries most of these raw materials included agricultural products as such they had to take ownership of the major raw material in the production of agricultural product: Land. they forced the native Kenyans in fertile areas into small villages thus alienating them from their chunks of land where they used to grow food crops and turned them into commercial purposed land growing cash crops such as cotton, coffee which were later to be taken to Britain for value addition.

These lands are what are now referred to as the white highlands which covered a large area of central Kenya and central rift valley. Some of the dissatisfied natives went into the bush and started advocating against the brutality and injustices that had befell them forming the popular Mau Mau fighters. Some decided to stay on and to some extent collaborate with the whites gaining the tag of so called home guards and others being elevated to chiefs.

With the attainment of independence, it was the collaborators that were left with the reins of power and the governance structures while the Mau Mau and their sons were neglected as there was hostility and suspicion between these two groups. Part of the deal for Kenyans to get independence from Britain was that the white settlers would not be forcefully evicted from the land they occupied but were allowed to stay on as they had a major role to play in the growing Kenyan economy, but those who were not willing to stay would be allowed to sell their land on the basis of a willing buyer-willing

seller situation.

By this time the collaborators and their sons had already setup themselves as the political and economic elite as they were in control while they rewarded themselves with positions of power the sons of the Mau Mau were left in despair languish and thrown into the vicious circle of social and economic poverty. With the control of the economic institutions,they manipulated their positions to get huge loans and buy the farms from the whites thus leaving the Mau Mau landless.

This situation would later lead to creation of the Mungiki who are sons of the Mau Mau. They settled in these new bought lands that were not originally their native lands at the expense of the original natives especially in the rift valley and gave them names from their dialect and such example would be an area in Nakuru called Kiamunyi which symbolizes the communities that were settled there that is kia-kiambu ,mu-murang'a, nyi-nyeri.

With the continual subdivision of land and increase in population density people started to notice how they had been ripped away from the land and started accusing others of having invaded their land leading to land based conflicts which were further fueled by politicians who rally the ethnic and tribal masses.

To date most of the land issues are and will be as the result of the effects of colonialism.

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