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The Land Question: Fourteen Years Later, It's a Hard Life in the Cold

The East African Standard (Nairobi)
NEWS
September 12, 2004
Posted to the web September 13, 2004
Nairobi
Inside Kayole's Soweto slums, where Elizaphan Njoroge lives on what used to be
a sisal plantation, his two-roomed tin shack is the envy of the many people who
were evicted from Muoroto, never to get a place to settle.
Njoroge is a lucky man as far as city land problems go: he was allocated a
quarter acre plot in a swampy area after Muoroto residents were brutally
evicted from Muoroto.
Of the 2,500 people who once resided in Muoroto, only 350 were resettled.
In the rainy season, Njoroge's luck temporarily runs out." Although the rains
are a good thing, we always dread them because the water fills our house and
drenches everything," he says. "This was once a sisal plantation."
Once a budding entrepreneur who ran a food kiosk in Muoroto, Njoroge now says:
"My food kiosk was known by many people, some of whom came all the way from the
city centre," he says nostalgically. "They liked my food because the prices
were affordable and the food was of good quality," he adds.
Fourteen years down the road, Njoroge has moved from a proud breadwinner who
used to provide for his family to a man who lives from hand to mouth.
His youngest daughter saunters into the sitting room, oblivious of her father's
predicament.
"Fourteen years ago, providing for my family was not a problem because I had
the money. Today, I don't know what to tell her," says Njoroge, fishing a rusty
coin from his pocket for his daughter's sweets.
"I was a hardworking man and God had blessed me with a good business. All I'd
wanted in life was to see my family live like other Kenyan families," said
Njoroge.
Like all ex-Muoroto residents, Njoroge still finds it painful to recall the
events leading to his violent expulsion from Muoroto in 1990.
"We were not beggars or dependants," said Njoroge. "Today, the people have lost
all hope and are scattered all over. We don't even know where some of the
people went."
Njoroge, who has been the de facto leader of the Muoroto squatters since the
dispersal and has taken it upon himself to track down many of the families that
lived beside his.
"I've been keeping tabs on some of our people, trying to keep records of those
who have died and those who moved elsewhere."
Njoroge recalls that they were transported to the swampy Kayole area by City
Council lorries in November 1990.
He says a District Officer he only remembers as Kimemia was ordered by the
Nairobi Provincial Commissioner at the time, Mr Fred Waiganjo, now deceased, to
supervise the re-location.
The Muoroto families who had been promised new homes in the expansive Soweto
plains were dumped and abandoned there.
"For two years, we lived with our families in the cold like lorries, with
nothing to eat, after we were dispossessed of everything," recounted one
Githongo, also an ex-Muoroto resident.
Githongo relived the first two years of their stay in the cold in Soweto,
saying they used to hunt for hares and antelopes for food.
Although they were made to understand that government land surveyors would
allocate them land, Githongo says that the surveyors, in cahoots with the local
chief, bypassed them and sold the plots to those who could afford to pay for
them.
Only 350 of the former Muoroto residents who were resettled in Soweto - divided
into "Muoroto original" and Kayole Riverside.
Others were taken to Dandora Area Five.
"We don't know where the rest are scattered," says Njoroge.
Residents here claim that Embakasi MP David Mwenje, then an assistant minister
in the Kanu government, displaced Muoroto people in collusion with the area
chief.
In a rare admission, Njoroge said many of their children had become hardcore
criminals. "We became so poor that our children had to go out to fend for
themselves," says Njoroge. "It is our children who loiter the estates of Umoja,
Doonholm and Buru Buru.
Toddlers when we were thrown out of Muoroto, they have become dangerous and
social misfits."
When a new government was elected in December 2002, the ex-Muoroto people had
great expectations. Nearly two years down the line, the optimism has turned
into scepticism and disillusionment.
"People are dying, people are hurting and the government has become insensitive
and negligent," said a resident.

   

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