Embu Governor Cecily Mbarire has assured thousands of squatters living in the disputed 44, 000-acre Mwea Settlement Scheme in Mbeere South Sub-county that nobody will be evicted.
She asked them to stand firm and rest assured that her government would not allow anyone to throw them out of the land they had lived on and known to be their only home for decades.
“This land belongs to you, and nobody can dispose of you,” she maintained, adding that everyone has a right to live there by adverse possession.
She said her office will sit down with the warring factions to iron out the dispute about ownership of the land that many communities have laid claim to, including Embu, Mbeere, Kikuyu, and Kamba.
Subdivision and titling of the land were suspended by the government in 2018 after chaos erupted, leading to the death of one person while scores were injured.
“We must agree that anyone born, lived, and married here must be given his or her rightful share of the land inheritance and title deed,” she said while speaking in Makima Ward when distributing farm inputs to farmers.
She said priority will be given to the settlers who have been in occupation for decades, adding that a joint committee involving the national and county governments had been constituted to amicably settle the matter.
The county boss regretted that the main challenge was that some powerful individuals were thinking it was a free-for-all and decided to allocate themselves huge tracks at the expense of the settlers.
Two weeks ago, elders from the Ngome Council of Elders who are part of the claimants gave the government a 60-day ultimatum to settle them, saying they owned title deeds for their portions.
Their plea had been met with resistance from the squatters, who claim all the titles were cancelled following the conflict and are now awaiting the process of subdivision to commence afresh.
In February 2020, the Environment and Land Court nullified 9,233 titles issued and ordered for fresh subdivision and the allocation of new ones under the supervision of the office of the County Commissioner.
The ruling was made following a petition by some members of the Ngome Council of Elders who had sued the Ministry of Lands, Attorney General, Embu County Government, National Land Commission, and some 320 beneficiaries.
The tussle has for years been used as a campaign tool to get votes by political aspirants as they weigh in on the dispute in the name of finding a lasting solution.
By Samuel Waititu
