Land problems and grabbing is not a new thing at the coast. Many natives have remained squatters over years despite it being owned communally by the indigenous inhabitants before the colonial era. The Coastal region is rich in history ranging from the Portuguese, Omani Arabs and the British.
Omani Arabs had pursued and defeated the Portuguese where they gained a lot of influence and wealth. This made their Sultan (Seyyid Said) relocate his capital from Muscat in Oman to Zanzibar islands around the year 1856.
European settlers arrived years later and partitioned East Africa among themselves which would become their colonies. The British signed pacts with the Sultan who was given jurisdiction over a 10-mile coastal strip which measured from shoreline to mainland. The strip stretched from Kipini in Lamu to River Ruvuma at the Kenya-Tanzania border. Due to supremacy, the Sultan gave land to Arabs and neglected the locals.
In 1963, Jomo Kenyatta signed an agreement on the coastal strip where colonial regime land titles were to be respected as the Sultan had requested. Land rights were not to be interfered with. This, however, was unfavourable to the local inhabitants.
Many tracts of land have remained under the possession of the Omani Arabs to-date where most moved back to their country after Kenya's independence in 1963. Due to population growth, more people have become landless. They live as squatters where they were periodically evicted by the ‘landowners’. The problem is common in Lamu, Kilifi, Kwale and Mombasa counties.
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