Mwea squatters stage demos over land title rumours

Embu,

Wednesday, January 17, 2024

KNA by Steve Gatheru

Hundreds of squatters yesterday held a peaceful demonstration to pressure the government to review the 2016 allocations of land in the controversial Mwea Settlement Scheme.

The demonstrators presented a memorandum to Mwea Deputy County Commissioner’s office (DCC) at Karaba where they said they had been gripped by anxiety following rumours that the Ministry of Lands registry at Kiritiri had started issuing titles for plots in the scheme before outstanding grievances had been resolved.

Residents who had marched from Gategi said they were worried that "strangers" allocated land by the Embu County Government might start evicting them, yet they did not have anywhere else to go.

They said they have lived in the scheme all their lives with their grandfathers having settled on the farm in the 1940s or earlier and that they had even established schools in the scheme.

Makima MCA Phillip Nzangi urged the national government to step in and find ways of resolving the disputes amicably since they did not want a repeat of the violence like the one that erupted in 2018 following the lopsided allocations in 2016.

The allocations triggered riots in the scheme in 2018 when the residents discovered some of their neighbours had been left in the allocations. During the riots that lasted several days, a young man was shot dead while another was left paralysed after being shot.

Assistant County Commissioners Wanjiru Muthuri and Floridah Ntwiga received the memorandum on behalf of the DCC and assured them that their grievances would be looked into though they added the process may take time.

Nzangi said any fair settlement of the matter must first consider the 7000 squatters who have developed their plots over 60 years and also ensure they'll not be made to vacate their plots.

He cautioned any land buyers against buying plots in the disputed land warning they could acquire land only to end up in unresolved disputes.

The MCA alleged that a peaceful settlement of the issue was bungled by a group of "busybodies" styling themselves as elders in the traditional Ngome council of elders.

Courtesy; KNA