Mischievous Mau monkey torched my title deeds - settler

 

On October 3, David Cheruiyot told a multi-agency team identifying legitimate landowners in Eastern Mau that a mischievous monkey burned his land ownership documents.

The team is trying to end clashes over land. Boundaries could be expanded and alternative land is likely to be awarded to genuine settlers - but outside the fragile ecosystem.

“I settled in this place in 1996 having been allocated five acres. I stepped out to fetch water from the river when a monkey opened the door and got into the house,”  Cheruiyot, a Sigor resident, explained.

He said he did not see the need to close the house with a lock as the area did not have security problems. After getting water, he returned, only to find the monkey had eaten flour and other food.

His land documents had gone up in smoke after the monkey set them on fire, Cheruiyot said. He said he was not to blame for the loss of the documents - the monkey made the mess.

The multi-agency team called that explanation one of a kind.

The government aims to settle the clashes by the end of the year, vet settlers and documents and demarcate or adjust boundaries.

Each settler is to be given five acres outside the fragile ecosystem. Nonresident owners will lose their land, some may lose huge chunks of land.

The team includes representatives of communities, the Environment ministry, Kenya Forest Service, the National Land Commission, the county and others.

Lack of land ownership documents for land within the expansive forest block is among the challenges the team are battling as they race against time to find a lasting solution to the clashes.

The government is trying to rehabilitate the vital water tower degraded by settlers, many of them illegal. Many have been evicted.

The government has often been accused of inaction every time clashes rock the area.

But while some settlers said they do not have, can't find or lost their title deeds, others were flashing new-looking deeds, claiming they had preserved them by giving them to their lawyers for safekeeping.

Rift Valley regional commissioner George Natembeya said the government is committed to resolving the matter once and for all as it posed security and environmental challenges.

“We want to follow the procedure and resolve this matter. We have deadlines,” Natembeya said.

He had said earlier that the cutline might be adjusted and boundaries were not "set in stone".

The regional commissioner said the Ogiek community has been unhappy after other communities, such as the Kipsigis, came and settled in what they claim is their rightful, ancestral land.

Under the government’s plan, absentee land owners will lose their land.

“There is no point why a Kenyan does not have any land while others have over 70 acres that are lying idle,” Natembeya said.

He revealed some retired land registrars were still signing land ownership documents and backdating them.

The clashes in Eastern Mau have often been attributed to historical land disputes, political incitement, fights for scarce resources and  banditry.

The ongoing audit which involves 20 elders from the Ogiek and another 20 from the Kipsigis seeks to establish the status of those claiming ownership of the disputed land.

The elders are help the multi-agency team to identify genuine beneficiaries.

The exercise has been slowed by lack of ownership documents and most resident said their documents were torched during communal clashes.

The most affected areas  Tritagoi, Sigaon, Ndarugo, Nessuit, Marioshoni, Kapsinendet and Tagitech villages.

In most areas, the only proof of land ownership are agreements with reports indicating that many agreements were being signed to cheat the system.

Natembeya said the challenge was complex. This is because some settlers had been settled by previous governments while others just came, looked for land and settled. Others bought land.

The Eastern Mau forest block is one of the 22 forest blocks that form the Mau forest complex. Declared a forest reserve in 1964, the block covers  160,639 acres.

The government has been flushing out illegal settlers who have encroached on the water tower, which is a source of the Mara River. The river is famous for the spectacular annual wildebeest migration.