Some fellow licensed surveyors have narrated harrowing stories of land grabs targeting their clients. I have had the experience too. Some local newspapers have reported similar accounts. Last year, Africa Uncensored, one of the independent media houses, ran a series of episodes entitled “Title Deals” between September and November, highlighting the wretched plight of some victims. The confidence and daring of the perpetrators shocks. Were it not for the familiar localities such as Karen, Westlands, South B and Thome, the serialized incidents would fit into fictional realm. Government ought to be rattled, and move to stem the trend. Else, impunity will reign, and private land tenure security in Kenya will be greatly undermined. Moreover, government officers themselves may sooner become victims.

Land grabs

The conventional form of land grab in Kenya, and most of Africa, has been standard and predictable. Folks, often with privileged knowledge on land ownership patterns in a jurisdiction, would identify available public or community land then proceed to use executive, political or even business influence to acquire it. This would be done regardless of the designated public purpose, and in contravention of due procedures. It would happen regardless of protests from the target institutions and communities. Enough incidents of this nature have been documented in the “Ndung’u Report” of 2004, among others. Perhaps the establishment and coming into office of the national land commission interrupted this gravy train, making scouting for public and community land for private take riskier. This may have motivated the emerging alternative forms of land grabs.

New methods

The new method, at its primary level, targets vacant private land. Level two targets developed private land where the proprietor may have died or is away for long periods. Level three targets the old, elderly and defenseless proprietors, or those that are poor and weak, both susceptible to raw intimidation and easy eviction. Ownership documents for the vacant pieces of land are replicated, with or without the connivance of the duly mandated government agencies. Physical entry then follows, often accompanied by the use of brute force in the event that the legitimate owners resist. Suave grabbers will also quickly subdivide the land, and convey the smaller plots to willing buyers, to optimise gains. At times, this is done with the support of complicit professionals in the private and public sector. At other times, innocent professionals in the surveying, legal and valuation disciplines in the private sector have found themselves entangled in such irregularities.

Parallel ownership documents for developed properties where owners may have died, travelled or are aged and weak have been processed then used to put such properties on sale. The aged and weak who attempt to obstruct eviction are bundled out. In all the cases, the grabbers use pliant state officials and our courts to frustrate any efforts to recover the subject land. It is cruel and ruthless; it’s against local and international conventions on land tenure rights. Government ought to stop it.

Dated: 14th March, 2024