Confrontation is looming between security agencies and squatters occupying a disputed land in Laikipia County, whose ownership has been a subject of court battles that have dragged on for over a decade.
The more than 5,000 pastoralists who have occupied the land at Kimugandura village in Laikipia North Constituency for over five decades have vowed to resist a move to evict them from a place they claim to be their ancestral land, despite losing the recently concluded court case, where they had been sued by a group of investors said to possess legal ownership documents.
Led by Laikipia North MP Sarah Korere and former National Assembly Speaker Francis Ole Kaparo, the squatters vowed to stay put and resist eviction orders issued by Nanyuki Environment and Land Court in June this year, arguing they had already filed an appeal, terming plans to evict them as illegal.
“No one will be allowed to subdivide this land, and those who claim it’s theirs, there is a pending case, and not even the county government can issue a directive when the case is still active; it’s undermining the court process,” said the MP.
They also claim that President William Ruto, while on a recent visit to the area, had promised to solve the issue amicably, including through government purchase of alternative land to settle the affected families.
But last month, the Laikipia Land Surveyor’s office wrote to county security chiefs requesting support in surveying the land measuring over 10,000 acres to pave the way for the removal of families that have for years defied orders to vacate the property that was acquired by private investors.
Korere accused the National Land Commission (NLC) of failing to adequately address issues of historical land injustices in Laikipia County, pointing out that pastoralists who own the land communally have continued to be dispossessed of their ancestral lands by local and foreign investors, leaving them with limited place to graze their livestock.
“Historical Land Injustices in Laikipia have to stop, and especially in Kimugandura and Kisiriri in Laikipia West, we saw them being issued with vacate notices. Land ownership is a constitutional right, and if NLC can’t address historical land injustices, it should be disbanded,” she said.
By Muturi Mwangi
