Urbanization and the risk of unsettled, disenfranchised, disinhertred families

As the urban sprawl gradually spreads, akin to a mild bush fire, bodies such as the UN HABITAT & UNESCO among others must continue raising awareness and knowledge on the positive and negative impacts of the phenomenon..

It has been said that urbanization is a force that no human being or government or institution can stop or arrest so sharing adequate and timely information on the process is crucial both to prepare people mentally and for governments and related institutions and partners to take steps for coping with the inherent changes that follow urbanization. .

These realities rang a bell in my mind earlier today as I attended a DDLOWA (Dagoretti District Landowners Welfare Association) meeting that is hosted every second Tuesday of every month and which always raises pertinent issues including threats to social welfare and security of the area’s original, rather indigenous people and their families.

Notably, these people have been raising genuine concerns seeing that Nairobi City is gradually and surely spreading to their areas. The gradual urban sprawl also threatens the indigenous families and their kin with disinheritance from their land.

The wider Dagoretti Constituency was carved out of the then Kiambu District around 1969 to create a parliamentary seat (Dagoretti constituency) for medical doctor Dr Mungai Njoroge who also happened to be the then personal physician of Kenya’s founding president Mzee Jomo Kenyatta….

(Afterwards, Dr Njoroge was elected and served as the constituency member of parliament (MP) for several years)

When this reality hit them, the area elders sought and got an audience with president Kenyatta and they signed some agreements, MoUs in modern terms.

The earliest Agikuyu people who settled in the area possibly in the late 1800s to early 1900s or thereabout had emigrated from areas such as Murang’a and other parts of the wider Kiambu & central Kenya and thus got the land as their ancestral places.

They got freehold certificates of Titles just like millions of other Kenyans who settled in different parts of the country as their original homes and where most live in uttermost peace, comfortably and proudly.

Hundreds of thousands of people were thereafter born in the area and have no idea of any other ancestral homes or lands.

So the elders who met H.E. Mzee Kenyatta wanted to secure their future and that of their future generations and essentially their posterity. Among one of the major agreements was that their land would always retain freehold certificates of title deeds.

Listening to the issues that DDLOWA leaders and members raised, I realized that their concerns are genuine and legitimate.

…..

Some of the pertinent issues troubling DDLOWA members’ hearts include being issued with or getting leasehold titles (certificates of lease) once they subdivide their freehold land (essentially, the leaders advise, subdivision should not usurp freehold titles privilege and replace them with leasehold); very high fees when they apply for change of user for the lands; and recent moves to increase riparian land along the rivers flowing in their area from the original 30 metres to 60 meters, a move they say is taking (without compensation) much of their ancestral lands.

The DDLOWA leaders have been alert and have been following the above issues keenly and in fact have presented several submissions in the land & environment  court among other courts

The leaders are also pursuing some land historical injustice cases where several clans and families say they lost their ancestral lands to institutions, organization and individuals who carved off their land arbitrarily… The relevant petitions have already been presented to the concerned parties and submissions for the cases are also in courts: the leaders are also following up with their lawyers.

… The leaders are also very concerned that what have always been their community lands (some of it donated in unison and small units by many of the original land owners) are being used arbitrarily for other projects even without their consent or prior notice.