Residents of Kamathatha village, Gilgil Constituency on Sunday held peaceful demonstrations in Gilgil town, accusing a prominent politician, who is also a businessman of planning to grab their land and have them evicted.
Led by Sospeter Wamwangi, who is their chairman, the residents said that they will stay put and will not allow the grabbing and eviction to take place.
“More than 600 youths from this area usually get their income from sand harvesting, and if this land is grabbed, it means that they will not have a source of income. We have lived in this land for over 30 years and we were shocked when we were served with an eviction notice,” said Wamwangi.
Wamwangi further appealed to the Ministry of Lands and also the National lands Commission to intervene and come to their rescue.
“We as the community was given this land more than 30 years ago by the Late Njenga Karume. The late Karume gave us 75 acres and we decided to allocate 25 acres to school. We are appealing to the Government to come and help us solve this matter once and for all,” he added.
Good Governance Chairman Moses Gitonga later joined the demonstrating residents, and said that the move to evict them was going to render many families homeless and also jobless.
He further pointed an accusing finger at some of the government officials who he said were working with some cartels of land grabbers to ensure that they fully evict the residents so that they can own the 50-acre piece of land.