Government asked to ratify sub-division of IDP settlement land

 

The Government has been urged to urgently validate the subdivision of a vast piece of land in Nyandarua meant for the resettlement of Internally Displaced persons who were uprooted from their homes during the 2007/08 Post-Election Violence.

The more than 1,000 IDPs who have been living on the 523 acres accused the government of failing to formally sub-divide the land for them yet the land was allocated for their resettlement.

The families who have been living on the land since 2009 forcibly shared out the land among themselves on Tuesday saying that they were helping the government do its work.

Efforts by the police to stop the exercise were futile as the IDPs armed with tape measures and beacons divided the land and moved their families from the camp where they have been living in temporary structures made of iron sheets.

“We have done the bigger part of the work which is surveying and sub-division, the only thing remaining is for the government to approve the map,” said Peter Ndoho.

He said they had been living in deplorable conditions for the past 13 years because they could not build proper housing structures prior to the sub-division.

The families claim they were to be allotted two and a quarter acres each but the government had not formalised or even sub-divided the land.

Another IDP, David Ndung’u said the government had dumped and forgotten them there forcing them to live like squatters in a camp for more than a decade.

“This uncertainty has caused land prospectors and grabbers to think that they can take away the land from us, there have been efforts to evict us from the camp within the farm but we have stayed put,” said Ndung’u.

He called on President Uhuru Kenyatta to visit them and personally address the matter once and for all.  

"We have been in camps for the last 13 years and the land meant for our resettlement is being eyed by private developers who might steal it if appropriate action is not taken,” he said.

Anastasia Waithera said they were living in an unconducive environment in a congested camp and without proper sanitation facilities.  

She reminded Preside Kenyatta that they were relocated from clash prone areas under his directive as Deputy Prime Minister and urged him to finalise what he started more than a decade ago.