THE DAILY VOTERS SERIES
By Nemayian #Vegetarian
UHURU VS RAILA
Part 1/ 7; Kenya our country, literally
I have to make a decision for this country to the degree of its limitation of 143.645 million acres for 48 Million citizens. Which comes to about 3 acres per head.
I am guided by Article 61 (1) which states that “All land in Kenya belongs to the people of Kenya collectively as a nation, as communities and as individuals”.
Why do I need to think?
Politics to me is about resources. The accumulation, prioritization, allocation, growth and manipulation for political advantage or disadvantage.
I do this because I am a single mother of two daughters under ten. I am also a micro business lady and it is tough being those two things at the same time.
The decision I have to make has to be for the present and for the future. It has to be able to positively affect from my grandmother to my parents whom we take care of, to myself and my dreams and work and to my daughters in the present.
Some may call me middle class, maybe I am by some standards or maybe I am not by the weight on my socioeconomic person day after day, month after month.
It’s because of this that I have to be brutally honest with myself as I make a decision on Raila or Uhuru on 08.08
KENYA AS OUR COUNTRY
We have land and borders, we have resources, we have people and we have infrastructure.
Land and boundaries are a limited resource and cannot always be about the highest bidder. From where I sit in my 30 something years of life, Land reforms are a must.
We have seen land meant for the most critical public institutions; police stations, hospitals, government offices, roads, even sensitive installations like the County Commissioner’s residence, have been allocated to individuals.
Land grabbing and irregular land allocation is common place since independence. The Centrality of Land in our human life was one of the instigators of wresting our country from British colonialists. But even after independence, discontent over land ownership has remained the most notable source of frequent conflicts and tribal clashes. Laikipia is on fire for a reason. Who are these who sold community land in thousands of acres to individuals?
Landlessness is undignified. There needs to be an orderly form of land redistribution which is implemented by acquiring land compulsorily and resettling people.
Women are the leaders in agriculture, doing 80% of the work yet do not have rights to the lands. This is not necessarily a legal but a customary challenge that has to be continuously addressed in an economically progressive country. Agriculture absorbs 70% of our workforce as a country.
Among the land policy principles are equity; security of tenure; access to land information; transparency; and good democratic governance.
An important feature of National Land Policy is that It recognizes communal ownership of land as a legal tenure regime equal in status to the other two – private and public tenure. Another important feature of NLP is that it identifies subsistence farmers, pastoralists, hunters and gatherers as vulnerable groups who require special recognition and facilitation in order to gain secure land rights and effectively participate in land-related decision making.
Our main challenges around land reforms are political. The Ndungu commission found that at least 200,000 illegal titles to public land had been created between 1962 and 2002, 96% of them in the period 1986-2002, during the presidency of Daniel arap Moi. The grabbers are mostly political families and their business associates and financiers.
Parliamentarians once elected dive into the gravy train and therefore they may not be keen on the Land reforms that get in the way of personal wealth and power. Chaos is a method that has worked to their advantage and is best kept that way.
Most current and historical land injustices remain unresolved. Grabbing and illegal allocation of public and communal land goes on aided and abetted everywhere in the country. Critical ecosystems continue to be degraded.
What is needed is a strong political will to achieve land reforms. Someone who is willing to get into their boots and wade through the murk to a peaceful and sustainable resolution.
This is the spirit of our prayer in our national anthem?
“Bless this our land and nation
Justice be our shield and defender
May we dwell in unity
Peace and liberty
Plenty be found within our borders.”
Q1. Who Between Raila and Uhuru can I trust to firmly oversee land reforms in Kenya for the benefit of all Kenyans?
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