•The community said the land in question belongs to three clans; Mwamundu Mwayawa, Mwamundu Kichororo and Wachanda who have lived in it for over fifty years.
•They said about 500 title deeds are set to be released soon, but the residents claimed some beneficiaries are not natives of the region.
Residents of Maji ya Chumvi in Kinango, Kwale, have petitioned the state to stop land adjudication on disputed 148,000 acres.
Led by R Fredrick Kanato of the East Africa Pentecostal Church Samburu parish, they accused politicians of working in cahoots with officials from the Lands ministry to subdivide land to cartels.
The community said the land in question belongs to the Mwamundu Mwayawa, Mwamundu Kichororo and Wachanda clans who have lived there for more than 50 years.
Currently, 3,000 residents are living on that parcel of land.
According to the residents, the state started the adjudication on the land in 2014, but some individuals from outside hijacked the process.
They said about 500 title deeds are set to be released soon, but some beneficiaries are not natives of the region.
They said they were not fully involved in the titling process.
Kanato said they have since gone to court to stop the issuance of title deeds.
They asked the state to conduct the subdivision and allocation of the land afresh.
“We are calling on the government to stop any activity of adjudicating the land until the dispute is resolved, any title issued should be revoked with immediate effect,” Kanato said.
He blamed land cartels who have also gone to court to push for the release of the title deeds.
“The Lands Cabinet secretary should send officers to the ground to solve the matter. We know our boundaries and we will not allow cartels to divide and take away our land,” he said.
His sentiments were echoed by Mohammed Menza, who insisted that the titles should reflect the real acreage of land each family owns.
He said that the adjudication was faulty as the residents were not fully involved in the exercise.
“It was not done in the right way. For instance our plot number 186 measures 1,540 hectares, but on the title deed it reads only 0.73 hectare,” he said.
Nyota Mgandi, an elder of the Mwamundu Kichororo clan, asked the government to allow local leaders led by Kinango subcounty officials, chiefs and village elders to come in and resolve the matter before it gets out of hand.
“We have our local leaders who can assist in solving the matter. Let them do it. They know our boundaries very well,” Mgandi said.
Tom Mwanyato, a Kwale human rights defender, asked the government to form a special tribunal to look into the matter.
He also vowed to stand with the community saying that such cases were becoming rampant in the county
“This matter cannot be discussed in court. It needs a special tribunal to dig deep and find out the people behind land grabbing," he said.
(Edited by Francis Wadegu)