Hundreds of families in Mombasa County stare imminent eviction threats in the face from absentee landlords who assert ownership of the lands based on ancestral rights.
For centuries Arab landlords from Oman have maintained control over the 10-mile coastal strip along the Indian Ocean long before Kenya attained independence.
Nominated Senator Miraj Abdillahi wants the national government to move with speed in addressing historical land injustices meted out on the people in Mombasa County.
Senator Miraj called on the government to intervene in these injustices rooting for the need for a comprehensive land policy that acknowledges historical land expropriation.
She says the long-standing land dispute between tenants-at-will and descendants of former Coast rulers (Liwali) who represented the Sultan of Zanzibar is far from over.
The affected areas are Bondeni, Mwembekuku, Mji wa Kale, Kaloleni, Sparki, Majengo Sidiria, Sargoi, Guraya, Kiziwi and Ziwani where more than 20,000 tenant families’ lives are at stake.
She says the tenants have built houses on the plots owned by the Liwali heirs who mostly live in Oman and elsewhere in the Middle East.The tenants-at-will have built their houses on these parcels of land owned by absentee landlords and pay rates to the landlords’ representatives.
The Senator says that tenants’ grievances need to be heard as they are being harassed by agents of the landlords and appealed to the government to come to their rescue.
In the past efforts to amicably resolve the long-standing land dispute between tenants-at-will and descendants of former coast rulers who represented the Sultan of Zanzibar by the National Land Commission (NLC) failed to reach a solution.
Senator Miraj called for urgent action to rectify the historical land injustices and restore the rights of affected communities in the coastal city.
Tononoka MCA Ali Sharif says the NLC should go out of its way to end the stalemate saying hundreds of families face an uncertain future.
The MCA says the tenants have been paying land rates every month to absentee landlords who have been collecting land rates through local agents.
Nagib Shamsan of Kenya Land Alliance says the affected residents are occupying land taken away from their forbearers and should be returned to them unconditionally.
Shamsan says it’s unacceptable that in this day and age foreigners with fraudulent land documents are continuing to oppress indigenous people and threatening them with evictions.
The land activist has noted that the dispute between the current inhabitants and the foreign landowners was complicated and called on President William Ruto to intervene.
He says the Kenya Kwanza regime has expressed its commitment to resettling legitimate squatters in the coastal region and should start with people living on land ‘owed’ to absentee Omani landlords.
Shamsan says the landlords were lucky to get free land when the 10-mile coastal strip was under the Sultan of Zanzibar but demanded that the same should now revert back to the current inhabitants of the land since the government has the legal right or authority to do so.
He stated that if title documents of any land were fraudulently issued or procured it should be cancelled in the interest of the general public.
On her part Halima Abdalla a retired senior chief says the occupants have resided on the contested parcels of land for hundreds of years with some developing the land.
The retired grassroots administrator says the families who have been occupying the land belonging to absentee landlords for decades should finally be granted ownership free of charge.
“It would be unreasonable to just chase away the tenants at will, they should be facilitated to own the land,” she said.
By Mohamed Hassan
