The Land Question And Why We Badly Need New Thinking Part 2

As I wrote and did a little more research on this land issue I quickly realized that it is such a wide and complex time bomb that it will in fact take numerous posts (and not just 3) to cover it adequately. And yet it is too important to put on the back burner, especially now.

Solution: I will write several posts on it (interrupting them with the usual posts on other subjects) until I feel that it has been covered enough. The objective will be to raise public awareness and interest on this subject. Simply put without both, how can we even begin to hope to sort out the terrible mess that is the land issue in Kenya?

But let me start this post with an amazing bombshell I unearthed.

Did you know how former President Daniel Arap Moi ended up with the land allocation frenzy that virtually ate up almost every vacant prime land leading to allocations in the Mau and Karura forest that have such dire long term implications on the future of millions of Kenyans?

To answer that question we need to go back to the beginnings of the Kenyatta administration. Many Kenyans do not know this, but it is not only those close to the president who benefited from land allocations during the Kenyatta era. Some crafty Kenyans who happen to be Kikuyus came up with an amazingly effective scheme that worked every time. They would use President Kenyatta’s name to grab any land they wanted. “Mzee anataka hii.” And in those days of people disappearing and then being found very dead and with their private parts chopped off and put in their mouths, who would dare challenge such a statement? And even if you wanted to check would you pick up the telephone and call State House (then an unlisted number) to find out if it was true that the old man wanted your shamba? There are numerous prime plots and land all over the country that were acquired in this way. Even businesses (some owned by foreign investors who did not have the right connections) were taken over in this way. This led to another scheme by those close to the president who designed an “insurance scheme” where every serious foreign investor was adviced to allocate 10% to 15% shares free of charge to members of the first family and those close to them. This percentage climbed up to over 50% at one juncture during the Moi days. If you doubt the Kenyatta ownership of companies story then do some research on the shareholding history of major hotels at the Coast to start with. But all that is a juicy story for another day.

Back to "earth" matters. Later when the Kenyatta administration started running into one political crisis after another it was realized that they would always bank on the solid support of the Kikuyu community who had benefited tremendously from Kenyatta’s rule. It is a truism that no serious political leadership can survive with solid bed rock support from somewhere and the president’s community was naturally the easiest to reach out to and what’s more would always be counted on. And what made the support of this community even more effective was its’ sheer economic power which is also critical in meeting certain political objectives. Little wonder that in the latter days of Kenyatta’s rule this “landgrabbing” using the president’s name was secretly encouraged mainly by being ignored and action not being taken on culprits. Unless of course they failed to do their due diligence and ended up grabbing property that was already owned by “Kenyatta people.” Some politacl savy Kenyans made their fortunes by taking adavantage of times of political crisis like the Tom Mboya assassination in 1969 and the killing of JM Kariuki in 1975.

Now when Moi took over power in 1978 it did not take him long to realize that he was a sitting duck with such a wealthy and powerful Kikuyu class that had benefited greatly form the Kenyatta years. This message sunk deep after especially after the failed coup attempt in 1982. Moi quickly decided that he would duplicate what had happened during the Kenyatta years by empowering the Kalenjin community using land allocations. By this time he had seen how quickly people can become wealthy in Kenya by simply making use of some space of dirt. And so the land allocations started.

It was a failure because the Kalenjin community did not have the same background the Kikuyu had when it came to utilizing land. One commentator described this in a way I cannot better so let me quote him verbatim.

“Before the coming of the whites, Kikuyus had two types of land tenure in co-existence: private ownership, and common ownership (the commons). Usually, the commons were owned by individual clans. If you read Leakey's works (written around 1900s) you will see how the British were surprised to find the law governing the Kikuyu private ownership component was similar in many respects to the law of England at that time. So when the British alienated Kikuyu land, they were alienating both privately owned land and land held in common by clans. For example, when Captain Grogan took the land where the UoN main campus stands, he took it from an individual (a woman) and the land in Chiromo where Grogan's house still stands was held in common by the woman's clan. Remember the descendants of the woman trying to revive the question of that land in the early1990's?

Thus the fight between the Kikuyu and the British was fueled by three-layered bitterness: at the tribe level, at the clan level and at the individual level.”

From this you can gather that the Kikuyu were way ahead of virtually all the other Kenyan communities where land was concerned. In other communities land was never owned by individuals and therefore the concept of gaining wealth through land was very alien.

The result was that many Kalenjins who had access to land allocations during the Moi tenure simply got millions into their bank accounts, only to blow it all and end up paupers soon after. Remember all those stories that used to be told about Kalenjins driving around with lots of cash stuffed all over the place including in that lockable place on the dashboard of a vehicle? Very few got wealth and retained it. One of those few is Agriculture Minister William Ruto who sold allocated land to the NSSF at exorbitant prices and then cleverly re-invested his funds elsewhere.

With all due respect to our Kalenjin brothers, they are not the only non-Kikuyu community in Kenya that do not have the “expertise” to turn dirt into gold Kikuyu-style. Moi also rewarded a number of people from other communities with massive land allocations. One such beneficiary was the then chief of general staff General Joseph Mulinge. Although the ailing Mulinge is still a very wealthy man by any standards, one mzungu property expert (now deceased) who was also his advisor was irked by the Generals’ tendency to put up buildings at the least excuse, on every piece of land he owned. Many times these structures would end up almost useless and not worth the fortune in bricks and mortar invested in them.

Clearly what we are faced with in Kenya today is a situation where we have to find a way to correct what happened during Kenyatta’s 15 years in power and then add Moi’s 24 years. A total of 39 years of land allocations (legal and otherwise) as well as land grabbing.

So how do you even begin to correct that without adopting pure Karl Max communism? How do you write off the wealthiest Kenyan families and still hope to hold the nation together?

Meanwhile all this land grabbing has taken its’ toll on ordinary Kenyans. It has speeded up their head-first plunge into poverty. Nobody has given ordinary Kenyans an alternative route to wealth that bypasses owning prime or fertile land. The only alternative used to be to educate their children so that they could get rich (from a very good job) one day and buy back family land. We all know that that doesn’t work any more.

No wonder Mwarangethe keeps on repeating here that we are headed for chaos and anarchy. The same regular Kumekucha commentator has taken time to push forward his ideas of using taxation to correct the situation.

I agree with him and many of his ideas but would like to quickly add that taxation alone will not do the trick. We need to empower Kenyans on how to make better use of land. We need to prove to the very skeptical Kenyans that one can make a lot of money from land and without getting it free and then re-selling it to the NSSF at the prices of 20 years to come. This can happen even if you do not own the land in the first place. There is no reason why most idle land cannot be hired.

I will discuss some of those ideas in my next post.

The Land Question And Why We Badly Need New Thinking Part I of 3

When most of us voted so unanimously and with all our hearts for Mwai Kibaki to be president in 2002 we were certain than an old man was capable of leading us to our promised land although we knew it would require plenty of new ideas and a complete reversal of the old as we knew it. Looking back now, that was very wishful thinking indeed. The kind of idiotic thinking that only a fool would embrace.

Fast forward to 2009 and we don’t seem to have learnt anything. I shockingly discovered here in Kumekucha yesterday that some people I have great respect for see no other leader to bring about the change we want other than the hair-dyeing-mzee called Raila Odinga. Although I respect their views, I am still reeling in shock and a bit dizzy and dazed even as I write this. Now one of the things I have learnt in this life is that mistakes can be very costly but we are only human and that is why we inevitably make them. However it is NOT acceptable to make the same mistake TWICE. And only mad men do the same thing over and over again expecting different results.

I know how the current generation of leaders (including Mr Odinga) think. How do I know? I talk to their agemates a lot. I also talk to my dad about politics a lot. (Now for the sake of those newer readers to this blog let me tell you something about my dad. I have respect for the man. He is very principled and refused to be corrupt and very rich under great pressure, his life was even threatened. In the end he was retired from the police at a very senior position—next to the commissioner himself—because he could not tow the line and be corrupt like his super-rich colleagues. I have admitted here before that there was a time when I was sure that he was making a big mistake. Why not make money like everybody else? He is one of the people you should thank for the existence of this blog). Well listening to my dad’s political views I sometimes hear John Michuki talking. Lots of times I hear Mwai Kibaki talking and ambassador Muthaura as well, especially when it comes to views on the Luo community and the constitution. To put it bluntly the current generation of leaders cannot take in new ideas, they will never make sense to them. And that is why the reforms train will NEVER EVER leave the station until we change the leadership in this country. Don’t even think of a new constitution.

What the old men think and say; “How can you have regional governments? That is Majimbo and it failed in the 60s.”
The truth: There are many ways of having regional governments other than what was in Kenya’s original majimbo constitution besides even that model was NOT given a chance and was frustrated at every turn by the central government.
What the old men think and say: Obama will never be president. I know America well. Do you know how many times I have visited the States?
The truth: For better or worse, Barack Obama is seated in the White house as you read this.
What the old men think and say: How can you even suggest that a young inexperienced leader becomes president of Kenya. This is a job only for old experienced people.
The truth: When Jomo Kenyatta became prime minister in 1963 and later president, he was on old man completely out of touch with the world (that is worse than a young ,man who can learn a lot quicker and adapt to change better) and with zero experience in governing. In his entire life he never headed a political party for a single day. Actually the former Nairobi City Council water meter reader was a failure who had done many embarrassing things including spending public money that had been entrusted to him to accomplish a mission he was sent to theUK to accomplish. In brief, Kenyatta gained experience on the job.

In my view you can have all kinds of handlers to give you the kind of ideas that will appeal to the majority young voters in Kenya today but none of it is from your heart and sooner or later your true colours will show.

Anyway this long intro was mainly for the purpose of introducing the explosive issue of land. The other reason for the long introduction is because the minute you mention land most folks start yawning. Fascinatingly there was an article in the Kenyan press recently about how the new generation of Kenyans who have inherited vast tracts of land from their parents do not know what to do with it and are mostly disposing of it.

Pat Robertson owns a Christian TV station in the States that distributes the popular 700 club TV show that is shown across the globe. Mr Robertson is also a financial and investment expert and has spent most of his life trying to explain why it does not make sense to live in a house that you own. Try and tell that to any Kenyan. Closer to home, there is this attractive, sexy financial consultant I know who proved to me that Robertson is absolutely right. She advices her clients to live in rental property and buy land only to put up high rise buildings with cheap housing for the masses. Collect rent to pay your own rent, is her mantra. It is rare to find beauty and brains in the same place but even more important is that this close friend of mine makes plenty of sense. I am trying to prove to you that this land issue is not as boring as you think.

I urge you dear yawning reader to stay with me for a little while so that we can explore this really fascinating issue of land. In my view it holds the key to liberating and revolutionizing Kenya into that beautiful new country we would all like to see. (Well, admittedly not all of us want a brand new country, the older folks yearn for us to go back to the lazy heady late sixties world of cheap oil and fewer problems, but how realistic is this?)

In part 2 and 3 of this post I will jump headlong into this issue. I will touch on some fascinating tidbits that you don’t want to miss.

Like;

- How land grabbing started
- How Dar went back on its’ word concerning free movement of labour and assets in the East African Community simply because they feared toilet-grabbing land grabbers from Kenya invading virgin Tanzania.
- How exactly did Ruto use land to become an overnight millionaire? Some little know facts.
- How land can be used to turn around the fortunes of Kenya.

I am working on these articles now and Part 2 will be posted here sometime tomorrow. Meanwhile I welcome ideas. I am already making use of Mwarangethe’s considerable input here on this subject and would love to receive more contributions from others even those with a different view.


P.S. Mutahi Ngunyi, the popular Sunday Nation political analyst agrees with me that the Raila/Obama photo in the newspapers this week was done by the Prime Minister’s spin doctors for political purposes.

P.S. 2: A commentator here suggested yesterday that people should read the Weekly Review from the 1960s to understand stuff. Actually the founder of the Weekly Review was the editor of the Nation in the early sixties (1963) and he only founded the Weekly Review in 1975 at around the time JM Kariuki was assassinated.