The Kwale-based Saggaf family has pleaded with President Uhuru Kenyatta to issue them with a title deed for their 189-acre land valued at Sh2 billion before he leaves office.
In a letter to Lands Cabinet Secretary Farida Karoney and her Interior counterpart Fred Matiang’i, the family has appealed for help to obtain the ownership document.
“We feel forgotten and awfully disenfranchised but hopeful. We have tried all that we could for the last 53 years, and we have used all our resources to win back our land without obtaining the elusive title deed,” the family wrote.
The land is part of the larger Wasini Island in Kwale County. The island is a renowned tourist destination with marine animals including dolphins and sharks, as well as corals.
The family has expressed fears that they may remain squatters if Mr Kenyatta retires before they get ownership documents.
The family’s 139 heirs have pleaded to be included in the final phase of the national title deeds issuance programme that seek to provide more than one million such documents to land owners in Kenya.
“We strongly feel that our time is ready and there is no president befitting this handover of the Saggaf family land title deed other than Mr Kenyatta, who will be retiring with an unrivalled legacy of restoring land rights in the country,” said family spokesman Mohamed Maula.
Family members have remained squatters for years despite owning hundreds of acres of Wasini Island.
Even after winning a court battle over ownership of the property 25 years ago, the family is yet to benefit from the fruits of the High Court decision that restored their ownership in 1998.
They said they were desperate onlookers when the Jubilee administration distributed millions of title deeds to squatters and land owners in different parts of the country for the past 10 years.
“However, we are staking our last hope on Mr Kenyatta as he executes his final phase of the National Title Deeds Issuance program,” Mr Maula said.
The family argues that their ownership claim has passed several legal hurdles and that their case fits into the target lands classifications that President Kenyatta emphatically aims to resolve, including historical injustices, ancestral lands or natural resource preservation.
“We are gradually and painfully losing the land, and we have no more tears or words to explain to our elderly and children why after 53 years of [a] clear legal win, we cannot secure our title deed like the rest of families in Kenya. We have nowhere else to go but here,” Mr Maula said.
The family says all public land agencies have ruled in their favour since 1908.
“There is no public land agency or legal outfit that has not ruled in our favour in this case. Therefore, on behalf of the 139 heirs of this land, we firmly state that besides the title deed issuance to our family, the matter surrounding our land has fully been determined, documented legally and otherwise,” he said.
Court records show that the Saggaf family reclaimed the property in 1998 through a judicial process that has not been challenged.
The dispute ended with an order directing the invalidation of title documents issued to other entities, and another that reverted ownership to the family.
The National Land Commission (NLC) affirmed that the family owns the land after conducting a public hearing in Mombasa. It found that the family had suffered historical land injustice and directed that the property be surveyed and a title issued to them.
A survey was concluded but the family is yet to be issued with ownership documents. BY DAILY NATION