Amina Mwinyi stares into oblivion on her veranda, pondering where she will go should they be evicted from the place she has called home since 1970.
The elderly woman, who said she has little strength now and cannot move around much, explains they were welcomed by an elderly man – now deceased – who lived on the land.
“We had asked for a place to farm and Mzee Baya welcomed us and gave us a piece of land. We farmed and constructed a temporary house,” Mwinyi said.
After about 16 years, they constructed a permanent house as her family grew bigger, with six of her eight children born there. She has buried her two of them on the land.
“All that while, nobody had come to claim the land,” she said.
Mwinyi is among more than 350 families in Uwanja wa Pandya, Kadzandani ward, Nyali subcounty, who are fighting to save their houses and probably livelihoods, after they received vacate notices.
They are sitting on 13 acres of land, over which they have been in a court battle for almost a decade, with Lalitchandra Pandya.
Pandya won the battle at the Environment and Land court on June 9, 2021, but the residents appealed. However, on June 23 last year, the Appellate Court also ruled in Pandya’s favour.
On May 9, they received vacate notices through a local daily, giving them 30 days to negotiate with Pandya on whether they would buy the land or leave.
The families now want the national government's intervention.
“We did not negotiate,” Marcelina Kirindo, a resident, said.
This is because they were trying to verify the authenticity of the notice through their lawyer, Kirindo said.
The notice also gave them 90 days within which they should either vacate or seek audience with Pandya.
“We have never seen this Pandya. We are told he is deceased and that there is an administrator of the land, whom we have never seen,” Kirindo said.
Residents have no problem with negotiating, she added, but they have to engage with someone they can see.
Kirindo said they have nowhere else to go and called on the national or county government to buy the land on their behalf.
“We have permanent houses here, more than 350 of them. How can we demolish them?” she posed.
The residents said they have only had their houses demolished twice, the last of which was ten years ago, when the current Mining CS Hassan Joho was still Kisauni MP.
“It is Joho who stopped the demolition when he was MP, ” Kirindo said.
Pandya, through his advocates, Kanyi J and Company, said the offer to ç does not affect the 90-day period within which to vacate. The period lapses on August 9.
“Please note that any unlawful occupiers willing to purchase/lease any portion whereat their unlawful premises currently sits (albeit unlawfully) is encouraged to reach out to the proprietor’s advocates for such negotiations within 30 days from the date of this notice,” the vacate notice read in part.
Village elder Granton Mwang’ombe, who has lived in the area for 10 years, said they have been to the county government for help with little success.
