Opposition leader Raila Odinga yesterday met leaders from Narok county over the emotive Mau Forest evictions.
The meeting at his Capitol Hill office followed claims of brutality and inhumane measures in the eviction of illegal settlers from the expansive forest complex.
The opposition chief did not address the press, though his office had invited the media earlier in the day.
The meeting, according to his handlers, gave Raila an opportunity to receive first-hand information from grassroots leaders as he devises a strategy to win back support in the region controlled by his nemesis, Deputy President William Ruto.
The delegation included MCAs and opinion leaders mainly from the Maasai community, which has been at odds with their Kalenjin neighbors over conservation and settlement in the forest.
Raila has not spoken out on the issue since the evictions began to enforce a government directive to clear the forest of human settlement beyond the areas allowed.
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On June 25, DP Ruto announced that illegal settlers would be evicted from the largest water tower in East and Central Africa. The government has refused to back down.
The Mau issue has threatened to split Jubilee, with mainly Kalenjin MPs from the Rift Valley allied to Ruto accusing the government of evicting people from land that was given to them.
Senate Majority leader Kipchumba Murkomen last week claimed that Raila was the mastermind of the evictions, an accusation that Raila’s allies in the ODM party dismissed.
Raila did not respond.
Two days ago, Narok county commissioner George Natembea pledged that nobody will be allowed back into the forest, despite "blackmail" by politicians.
He said some of the evictees had turned themselves into internally displaced persons to attract sympathy as part of their strategy to return to the water catchment.
“We will not allow anybody to sit by the roadside or some schools as IDPs in the hope that after some time, they will be allowed back into the forest. This time round, the eviction is final. People have been playing politics with the lives of Kenyans for a long time,” Natembea said on Emoo FM.
The county commissioner claimed that some of the evictees were burning their own houses to portray the eviction process as inhumane.
“It's sad that after people peacefully vacated, politicians trooped to the forest and some people began torching their houses to make it seem that the police are doing it. It's foolishness,” Natembea said.
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“Right now, there is no burning house. But if Murkomen says he is going there in the afternoon, you will see houses burning,” he added.
Yesterday was the first time Raila met political leaders from the region since his March 9 handshake with President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Earlier, his spokesman Denis Onyango told journalists that a briefing scheduled for 11.30am had been put off until 3pm "to give room for more consultations".
However, by press time last evening, Raila was still holed up in the meeting, whose aim was seen as mapping out a strategy on his position over the Mau issue.
Sources said the ODM leader is keen to avoid plunging into the same mistake he made when he backed government evictions from the forest while Prime Minister. It cost him support in the region when Ruto and other top leaders turned against the plan approved by the Mwai Kibaki Cabinet.
Ruto rode on the backlash to change the region that had been under Raila’s control in 2007. The same was repeated in the 2013 General Election.
In 2009, Raila tabled a list in Parliament that showed the people who had benefitted from Mau Forest allocation during the Moi administration.
Among those listed as beneficiaries was then Baringo Central MP Sammy Mwaita and other 49 individuals and companies.
Kiptagich Tea Estates, Sian Enterprises and Kelewa Enterprises, which were all linked to retired President Daniel Moi, were given 80, 118.89 and 28.80 hectares, respectively.
Baringo Senator Gideon Moi was said to have received 44.74 hectares in the same area, according to the report which was prepared by former Rift Valley PC and now Chief Administrative Secretary Noor Hassan Noor.
Moi's aide, John Lokorio, was listed as having received 23.5 hectares in Nakuru and Zakayo Cheruiyot 1,955 hectares. Mwaita had reportedly acquired 23.5 hectares, also in Nakuru. The Little Sisters of St Francis of the Catholic Church got 2,956 hectares.
The report was tabled in Parliament.
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