Our past defines our future

[vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]I woke up to the bright glare of a flashlight in my face and a rough hand pulling me out of bed. For a split second I thought it was my younger brother pulling a nocturnal stunt of the century and opened my mouth to yell at him. But seeing the silhouette of a long rungu and the shadowy features of two other adult males present in my room made me realize that this was no childhood prank. I was dragged to my parents’ room and watched the intruders kick my father as my mother begged them to leave him and us alone. I can’t tell if it was thirty minutes or an hour or two. But the robbers swept through the house having tied us in a bathroom and left with electronic items and whatever little cash they found. It was the early morning hours of August 29th 1986, my 14th birthday and one I will never forget as they took a watch that my parents had planned to give me as a birthday present. Four of the robbers were all eventually killed in the course of their chosen professions. The fifth one, who was the leader, was captured alive and interrogated in the presence of my father.

When asked why they had chosen to rob our house, he replied that they had actually tried to rob a neighbor’s house and had been repelled by the guards. As they ran away they looked over the ridge and saw the bright security lights of our house. That, and only that, was the reason why they chose to come to our house as they mistakenly figured that there must be a lot of valuables inside to warrant the amount of lighting outside. This traumatic event took place virtually 31 years ago, but I still remember the stomach churning terror I felt as a child while the painful grimace on my father’s face with every kick that landed on his body was forever seared into my memory. As a result, to date I cannot sleep comfortably in a house that doesn’t have a metal grill door somewhere between the external realm and my bedroom.

Human beings are the sum total of their singular experiences. Therefore every one of us has a story, a sum total of our past experiences that have defined who we are today and which guide a lot of our decision making in the course of our personal and professional lives. In last Thursday’s Daily Nation newspaper, the Council of Governors put a full two-page spread of the incoming governors and their deputies. Out of 47 counties, only 10 governors, or 21%, had deputy governors of the opposite gender. The veritable list consists of Governors Salim Mvurya of Kwale, Granton Samboja in Taita Taveta, Stephen Sang in Kericho, Samuel Tunai in Narok, Prof Paul Chepkwony in Kericho, Dr. Joyce Laboso in Bomet, Charity Ngilu in Kitui, Prof. Kivutha Kibwana in Makueni, Francis Kimemia in Nyandarua and Ann Waiguru in Kirinyaga. Let’s assume political expediency as a reason for selection of the opposite gender amongst the three women governor candidates, since an all female team is even harder to sell in a fairly patriarchal society such as ours. We are then left with 7 governors or 15% of the total counties with varied leadership teams, 7 governors who saw “bright lights” across the political ridge that attracted them to a different leadership template. Are these leaders then a function of their own past experiences that have allowed them to sidestep the patriarchal quicksand and choose women partners? Or can the same political expediency lens be applied to them perhaps due to the realization that the bulk of their voters are of a female extract and are moved by such displays of gender sensitivity? I will give them the benefit of doubt and say that the 7 governors have clearly had a positive experience in the past in working with female colleagues to the extent that they are willing to hitch their political fortunes, successfully I must add, to female candidates on their tickets. Of course it would be fallacious to argue that the remaining 37 governors have had negative experiences with females. But the question remains hanging in the air: what would it take to get more governor candidates to take on more women as deputies? Because their past experience, or lack thereof, with women in leadership cannot be ignored as a key driver of this anomaly.

[email protected]: @carolmusyoka[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Sun Kissed Beaches Do not belong to Kenyans

[vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]Serendipity is defined as the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way. Hang on to that thought, as I will get back to this definition further ahead in this column. Last week two seemingly unrelated items appeared on the Daily Nation’s Wednesday December 9th 2015 edition. A seemingly nondescript story titled “Villagers ordered out of Kilifi’s 3,000 acres” hugged the top left side of page 3 innocuously. Last Saturday December 5th 2015, villagers invaded and started subdividing private property belonging to a private company, Kilifi Plantations Ltd. Of course, in typical Kenyan fashion, we never quite get to be told what caused the villagers to arise from unknown heavens and majestically swoop down to lay a stake on an ill gotten prize. Further down the same newspaper’s pages, a quarter page advertisement caught my eye. The Ministry of Land, Housing and Urban Development placed a Public Notice signed by Mariamu El Maawy, the Principal Secretary. In the notice she informs Kenyans that the ministerial technical team that was appointed by the Cabinet Secretary (she doesn’t say which one, but one is left to assume that it is the Cabinet Secretary who she reports into, who would be the one in charge of Land) to plan, survey and issue title deeds to the occupiers of the land commonly known as Waitiki Farm in Likoni has commenced its work.

Ms. El Maawy urges all persons who may have purchased parcels therein to urgently present their claims before the said technical team. The claim should be accompanied by supporting documents such as a national identity card, a sale agreement, witnesses and any other document of proof of ownership. Now unless you’ve been hibernating under a rock, you must know the abhorrent saga of Evanson Kamau Waitiki, the Kenyan who bought 960 acres of land in Likoni in 1975, when Kenya was still one country. Twenty-two years later, politicians reminded us that Kenya was actually a fragmented hodgepodge of tribal enclaves and instigated “youth” to evict Mr. Waitiki from the land that he had industriously converted into a viable economic enterprise that was employing tens of locals through various farming activities. Somewhere along the line, the real “owners” of the land, whose ownership stemmed from their tribal bloodline rather than any cash consideration, moved into the 960 acres and a new village was created. A not-so-subtle message was sent to anyone who couldn’t trace their biological roots to the sandy soils and tropical climes of Mombasa’s coastline: “You are temporary residents here living and working at the behest of our generous spirit. Your land ownership claims, regardless of whatever pieces of paper you might have, are as transient as the waves that beat upon the sun kissed beaches of our forefathers.” That message was given one hundred percent endorsement by the highest office in the land in mid November this year, when it was reported that the President had personally brokered an agreement, and I quote: “The government has signed a framework agreement with Mr. Waitiki which establishes a road map of adjudication and titling of all the land to the current occupants.” Waitiki gets his money as compensation for the loss of the land, and the locals get the land. Kwisha maneno everybody can go home now.

Look, I get it. I get that the President had to bring this sordid saga to a mutually beneficial end, the kind of ending where everyone wins, right? Well the only winners were the ones on the mahogany wood State House table: Evanson Waitiki on the one hand and the myriads of new landed gentry in Likoni on the other. Which is why I chuckled when I read Ms. El Maawy’s point about providing proof of ownership. How does one provide legal proof of ownership over something that was acquired illegally? How does one legitimize illegitimacy ab initio? Anyone can draft a sale agreement and then scrape it on a cement floor to give it an aged look. But basic rules of sale dictate that there are two sides to any agreement and consideration has to pass from the buyer to the seller in order for the contract to be extinguished. Where such consideration can be as miniscule as a gnat’s toe, but is consideration nonetheless. There was no consideration given by anyone for the undisputed and unequivocal ownership rights of Evanson Waitiki.

Now to the point of serendipity, which – once again – is defined as the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way. Serendipity has landed upon the villagers of a section of the county of Kilifi, slapped them sideways and awoken them from slumber. Serendipity has galvanized these villagers into a metamorphic catatonia from hitherto economic serfs into potential landed gentry within the land owned by Kilifi Plantations Ltd. Serendipity has a long name: “Government pays Evanson Waitiki and legitimizes Likoni squatters.” Serendipity has an address: Ardhi House. Serendipity has an expiry date: On or before 2017 elections.

What we have seen in Kilifi is a taste of things to come, because good things come to those who wait. Invade land, wait eighteen years and get clean, crisp titles issued by your government. In other efficient markets, any company that had titles to thousands of acres of productive land used for generating their core product would see their share price fall after such an event since a clear operational and legal risk has been defined by none other than the central government under which that company operates. The warning signs have already started from the county governments of Murang’a with Del Monte land and the county governments of Nandi and Kericho with the vast tea estates held by Finlay and Williamson. The government may have won the political premier league at the coast with the Waitiki land settlement, but it has just midwifed into birth a bigger problem for large-scale private and corporate landowners in Kenya.

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Twitter: @carolmusyoka[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][/vc_column][/vc_row]