Land issues have recently contributed to the increased numbers of criminal cases at the Kiambu law courts.
Speaking on Monday at the prosecution office in Kiambu Town, Henry Kinyanjui a state counsel at the law courts said many of the cases brought before the court were in most cases related to land issues.
He said it is unfortunate that most people believed that without land, they could not eke a living.
Kinyanjui cited a case where a man had been charged with malicious damage to property, and in the process of hearing the case, the court learnt that the real problem was land. He cited another case brought before the court last week where a man was charged with fraud.
He said it also emerged at the hearing session that the bone of contention was land. Yet in another case, he said two brothers had been charged in late June with assault and when the case was heard, the genesis of the fight was the ancestral land which they were meant to inherit from their father.
Kinyanjui said there was need for people in Kiambu to be innovative and seek other sources of livelihood that do not involve land, which he said was causing some of them to find themselves on the wrong side of the law.
The state counsel explained that if people in the area were innovative, they would become self-reliant without necessarily relying on land.
Kinyanjui advised the residents to take advantage of initiatives started by the government to empower themselves. He said like in the case of the brothers fighting over their father’s land, they could have formed groups of six to 10 people and apply for the Uwezo Funds.
He added that if people in the area stopped over relying on land, it would lead to a decrease in the criminal cases being brought to the Kiambu law courts.