The county assembly has initiated a process of resolving the long-standing boundary dispute between the Oloirien and Mikululo communities in Kajiado East.
The Kenyawa/Poka MCA Bernard Moloma raised the matter last week and said he alerted the assembly that tension is still high in Olorien, an area the Maasai community and the Makueni’s Mikululo community are claiming ownership.
On Monday, the Kaputiei council of elders’ chair of land and natural resources, Daniel Osoi gave the Star the chronology of events of how the Maasai elders in the 1920s set the Olorien land aside for grazing their livestock during droughts.
Osoi, one of the 70 members of the strong Kaputiei council of elders, said all was well with the Maasai until some politicians, he declined to name, in 1992 used the Olorien land as a political carrot to attract voters when they promised them the “free” land in Olorien.
“The politicians from Makueni, those days, told their voters there was a free land in Olorien. Olorien land is on the western side of the Mombasa/Nairobi railway line,” said Osoi.
According to the National Land Commission documents published in 1933, and availed to the Star, Olorien land falls in Maasai Province, which is on the western side of the Kenya/Uganda railway line.
While the Maasai knew that Olorien was their ancestral land, they went about their businesses in the Kajiado East as their Makueni counterparts (the Mikululo community) went to court after accusing the Kenya Wildlife Services of using the land as a dispersal corridor for wild animals.
Osoi claimed that when the Mikululo community took the KWS to court, the government agency failed to defend itself after it failed to attend the court.
The case ruled in favour of the Makueni community, said Osoi, adding that the Maasai Olorien community got wind of the court ruling in 1993 and immediately started to agitate for their land.
In 2019, KWS acting head of corporate communications Paul Jinaro defended their rangers accused of beating up the Maasai herders in dispersal areas even after the court ruling.
“Each community has a stake over that land, but if there is any boundary dispute between them, then that is the work of the provincial administration,” Jinaro said at the time.
He denied claims KWS was protecting one group and allowing it to graze along the wildlife dispersal area.
Several lives have been lost in Olorien whenever the two communities converge with their livestock there.
In several schools, solar panels have been vandalised as the provincial administration officials from Kajiado and Makueni failed to resolve the matter.
The then Makueni county commissioner, Mohammed Maalim, who was later promoted to Rift Valley regional commissioner and his Kajiado counterpart, then Joshua Nkanatha avoided severally talking on the matter.
Those residents from Mikululo who are now developing property in Olorien claim that those owning large swathes of land there are senior government officials.
The president of the Kaputiei Council of Elders, Solomon Kisemei, told the Star that Olorien is in Kajiado East and the Maasai had accepted the KWS plan to use the area as a wildlife corridor.
“Our concern is that the Mikululo community have invaded our land and started building houses and tilling the land. This has disoriented the route of elephants from Tsavo national parks to Kyulu and Amboseli,” said Kisemei.
Kisemei said the invasion of the Olorien land by the Mikululo community has caused elephants to invade farms in Kiboko and Masimba areas.
“The only solution is to clear Olorien and send invaders packing to bring order in the management of wildlife,” added Kisemei.
The county assembly ad hoc committee on lands, physical planning and urban development chaired by Jonathan Koroine (Mosiro) engaged various stakeholders over the long-standing boundary last week.
The committee interviewed a section of the Kaputiei Council of Elders members led by Osoi to get insight into what is happening in Olorien.
Others who appeared before the assembly were the Kaputei Professionals, National Land Commission officials and those from the County Lands and Physical Planning department.
Osoi, last week, termed the long-standing dispute as a historical injustice that has posed challenges as the area had been demarcated as a sanctuary for pasture and water for livestock during drought season.
He wondered why members of the Mikululo Ranging company occupied the land.
Julius Ntayia, another member of the council, appealed to the county assembly to step in and find a lasting solution.
Representing Kaputei professionals, Dr Kennedy Kerei said that the Olorien feud has led to economic, environmental and societal cultural deprivation.
Kere said the area is a habitat for wildlife and a suitable economic hub for the locals.
The assembly committee has granted one week to the Kajiado county national land commissioner Saida Hamida to submit a report on the status of the boundary dispute.
