Residents of Gikumari village in Ruiru, Kiambu County want the government to name people behind a move to grab their 2,500-acre land after Cabinet Secretary Alice Wahome confirmed there was such a move.
Led by Gatong’ora ward MCA Dan Gitau, the land owners expressed their misgivings about the role of the local administration in the scheme after the CS revealed that some people had made forgeries of documents in an attempt to grab the land occupied by over 5,000 families.
Gitau, accompanied by local politicians, among them former Kiambu Town MP Jude Njomo and ex-Theta ward MCA Samuel Karema said the fact that a private developer’s graders working on roads were being guarded by police raised eyebrows about who was involved.
“The grabber must be a very powerful person since senior administrators led by the Central Regional Commissioner appeared to be at the beck and call of this individual” said Gitau during a thanksgiving prayer outside the St Joseph Catholic Church, Gikumari.
The locals and leaders maintained that legal action should be taken against what they termed as a “dastardly move” to deprive citizens of their property.
Wahome who was speaking at the Ruiru land registry on Thursdaya asked the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) to investigate the matter and prosecute those behind the move.
The CS declared that the land commonly known as ‘Juja Farm Block 4’ belonged to the occupants and dismissed as untrue claims that the government was out to evict the dwellers in a bid to build a housing project.