Delay in appointing land commissioners not interrogated

I have just perused the Sunday Nation and The Sunday Standard newspapers....it is Sunday 2nd December 2012. In both, none interrogates the delayed gazettement of the National Land Commission. Indeed, none has a land related story.....yet, every day everywhere you go, you will hear all acknowledge that the land issue in Kenya is 'emotive and contentious'. What irony then that it doesn't pollinate the minds of columnists and editors. In Kenya, it takes stakeholders a real hard push to get land sector issues burst into prime newspaper pages and prime broadcast news. This is quite unhealthy for Kenya's development.

Look at for instance the land commission story. Interviews for prospective commissioners were conducted and concluded in June 2012 and names of the qualified forwarded to the President. The President, in consultation with the Prime Minister, picked one person out of the two forwarded for Chair and eight people out of the sixteen forwarded for the positions of member and forwarded to Parliament for approval as provided under the National Land Commission Act 2012.

Parliament, despite its busy calendar, expedited and processed the names and forwarded to the President for formal appointment by 22nd August 2012. But since there were three petitions filed through the high court against the nomination of the commissioners, the President could not deal. Incidentally, one petition, High Court Petition (HCPT) No  266 of 2012, raised the issue of Maa representation, citing that the Maa group needed to be represented. This petition was withdrawn as early as September 18th 2012. I believe this was perhaps because the petitioners later noted that one of the nominees was actually from the Maa groups. The other two petitions, HCPT Nos 373 of 2012 and 426 of 2012, basically raised the issue of regional balance of the approved nominees. These were consolidated, heard and a ruling made, dismissing each, by Justice Majanja on 12th October, 2012.  This therefore paved way for the appointment of the chair and members of the land commission.

But close to two months later, the gazettement of this commission has not been named yet the National Land Commission Act provides that the President should gazette the nominees within seven days on receipt of the list from Parliament. Yet we should all remember that:-

1. The National Accord, in its Agenda Item Four, identified land reforms as one of the issues that required priority treatment to help address issues of inequity in land distribution and resolve historical land injustices cited as partly contributory to the 2007/08 post election violence.
2. The National Land Commission is charged with the responsibility of developing legislation to help resolve historical land injustices. It is also charged with the devolution of land governance as Kenya's national governance devolves in accordance with the constitution. This commission would indeed really complement the efforts of other constitutional commissions like the Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution (CIC), the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) and the the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) in preparing Kenyans to shun violence on account of historical land injustices come the March 2013 elections.
3. The Kenya Cabinet issued a moratorium on land transactions relating to public land and unregistered community land in February this year (2012) until the land commission is in place. This means that all the land transactions relating to such land remain in limbo until this commission assumes office.This is quite unhealthy for business
4. Being the eve of a general election and that officers in the Ministry of Lands and local authorities fear that the commission will take up their powers of land allocation, the prevailing mood and gap in appointments provides a window within which land allocations may be irregularly done, with documents of course back-dated to have records give the impression that the cabinet moratorium has been fully respected.

Editors argue that land stories aren't 'sexy'?

In the above circumstances, one may wonder how local media hasn't made this a matter for serious interrogation in both print and broadcast. Yet the implications of the delay are obvious and there is a clear breach of the law, unless the office charged with dealing otherwise clarifies. This is however not unusual. Media in Kenya seems to focus on the land issue or land reforms in general only when something sensational like land grabbing or some brutal evictions take place somewhere. That then momentarily makes print headlines or back page stories and bursts into prime broadcast news. It ceases soon after....without any systematic follow ups as in the Syokimau demolitions. The stories never pursue 'closure'. I remember whenever I point this out to some editors, they agree about the gap and style, politely pointing out that 'land is not sexy' for readers.

Similar trend around Africa

But perhaps Kenya media, compared to continental media, does quite well in this regard.....perhaps only with the exception of South Africa where land remains a most discussed matter(even then I wish someone was to do a survey on the number of times land related stories make news....I bet it would be proportionately low there too). Wherever I have traveled around the continent, land related stories hardly make news. This is a serious indictment to media editors around Africa who need to rethink their internal policies on this matter.

Land is basis of livelihoods in Africa

Land is the basis of livelihoods in Africa. Land supports shelter and business. It is our source of food....both agricultural, fish and livestock production are dependent on land rights. Land too anchors Africa's much coveted natural resources. And whenever there are differences about access to land or the exploitation of natural resources in Africa, serious conflicts arise. Governments spend big amounts of much needed development capital to manage such conflicts. Kenya's 2007/08 election conflict for instance cited land. The Tana River clashes that happened a while back may relate to territorial and pasture control. The Baragoi Samburu-Turkana conflict has elements of territorial and resource control. Mega projects like Konza ICT Park, Lamu Port, Isiolo Resort City project and the Lamu Port-Southern Sudan -Ethiopia (LAPSSET) project all involve reshaping of land relations and will raise key issues, some of which will reverberate across many other sectors. Its all about omissions or commissions in managing our land resources.

Large Scale Land Based Investments in Africa

In many other African countries, the story is similar. Land and access to land based natural resources will become a much more pronounced concern as developed nations converge on Africa for large-scale land-based investments, a phenomenon already causing disquiet in many African Countries and at the African Union level.

It therefore beats logic for media editors within the continent to address the land issue within their jurisdictions adhoc. It beats logic for them not to see and mainstream an issue that so much shapes the social-economic and political developments in their countries within daily news. Strategies must be sought to address this gap, this basic concern.

Internews, Nairobi and Land Development and Governance Institute's (Kenya) efforts to enhance local media capacity commendable

This is why I continue to laud Internews, Nairobi for its systematic programme to train local media experts on how to originate stories on land and natural resources in an effort to minimize conflicts. This programme has increasingly developed some local media experts and exposed them to the breadth and depth of land related stories and how to source and process them. In appreciating the local gap too, the Land Development and Governance Institute (LDGI), Kenya, has also started proactively enhancing the capacity of local media experts in this regard by taking up some selected journalists to sit in their training and public awareness forums to learn and not necessarily report. The results are promising. But these efforts can only give better results if backed up by deliberate internal policies within media groups in Africa to give priority to matters relating to land and land reforms at country and continental level.