Well, it’s now in the public domain that the land commission has quite some challenges. Even before we could take stock of its lament that titles were issued in Coast without pre-consultations with the line Ministry, the Lands Secretary, Charity Ngilu, waged war. She accused the commission of sleeping on the job and only attending to travel, meetings and public education since assuming office. Shortly after, the commission chair was quoted complaining that some 300 acre parcel of public land had been allocated by the Ministry without his knowledge. Clearly, turf wars had begun. But both will soon realize that none can win such public wars in a demanding service delivery sector like lands where endless requests for land, poor service delivery issues and unresolved disputes cry out for attention. They’d be best advised to learn to talk and work together at an early moment.

But keen observers are concerned about the statements attributed to various political actors ever since the war of words began. They are at best self-serving, at worst, destructive. The commission would be best advised to ignore them and get down to serious professional work. Why do I say this? We all know that, informed by bad lessons from history, the land commission was established to depoliticize the distribution and management of public land in Kenya. It was hoped that by removing the discretion to allocate and manage land from the presidency and the executive and entrusting this to an independent land commission with constitutional mandate, land in Kenya would cease to be used to politically reward or punish as expediency demanded.

Commission diminished powers of executive in land management

For this very reason, the establishment of the commission meant a diminishing of the presidency’s power in land allocation. It also meant a diminishing of the executive’s role in land management. At the time we promulgated the constitution following which we should have quickly ushered in a land commission, the coalition government was still in place, with the PNU wing holding the presidency while the ODM one was in charge of the line Ministry of Lands. Therefore, to continue retaining leverage, neither of the sides would have been too keen to have this commission assume office, leave alone operate as intended. How did this subsequently play out? Subtly!

It will be recalled that the then Lands Ministry initially turned a deaf ear as stakeholders pushed for a land commission law to be quickly enacted so that a commission could be appointed. When pressure got to bear, some claw back was ensured through legislation. This explains why the Ministry now operates land registries. This wasn’t the intention. It will also be remembered that after Parliament approved the names of the land commissioners, the president’s office never acted till stakeholders went to court. It will also be recalled that in their initial election campaigns, neither the Jubilee nor the CORD groups called upon the President to appoint the land commission. They began to do so late in February only after stakeholders obtained and went public with a court order compelling the president to do so.

Political groups have partisan interests

So Ngilu’s raid on the commission’s mandate is in keeping with the past and an attempt to continue using land to reward, the contents of the Jubilee manifesto notwithstanding. On the other hand, any reactive remarks from CORD are insincere and self-serving. The land commission must bear this in mind. It mustn’t therefore play to the political gallery. With power, any of the political players would treat them the same way. But Kenyans will support the commission if it applies itself diligently.