East Africa Legislative Assembly Member Abdikadir Aden has accused politicians and some county governments for owning idle huge chunks of land in trust depriving the indigenous community that can benefit from the said land
Speaking on Tuesday 22nd November, at Sportsman’s Amrs Hotel in Nanyuki during the East Africa Community Land Summit, the former Balambala MP urged individuals registered in such lands to consider natives who can benefit from their ancestral lands
“The laws enacted has not been implemented as per the letter because of lack of good leadership and political goodwill, we have leaders who don’t mind about the common citizens and that has been the major problem.
I thank God because all government representatives, political leaders and stakeholders are represented here and the message will be conveyed clearly to communal land grabbers,” Aden bursted
He told the summit that Burundians have suffered a lot in issues to do with pastorilists and communal land as well as some parts of Democratic Republic of Congo
“Nevertheless, pastoralists have to be more responsible on matters land ownership, we must be proactive, we must fight for the right of land ownership, you can not keep moving everywhere and convince enabling legislation to allocate you a pieces of land, we must be responsible so that government can register your land. This will enable you get compensation if there’s any project done by the government, county government or private developers once you submit the documents or rather title deeds,” He added
Accused the leaders and county governments for owning vast land in trust of the communal, yet they don’t make use of it and they keep away all indigenous people living in the surroundings
Aden further urged indigenous people to modernise their economic activities so as to position themselves in a competitive evolving world rather than holding their ancestral beliefs and cultures which are bygones
His colleague Fatuma Ibrahim told the pastorilists to keep manageable livestock that can’t be affected by climate change instead of keeping huge hard of cattle that will eventually die in adverse conditions
“In as much as we want the government to help us and compensate our degraded or taken lands, we need to scale up to the exotic standards of keeping a small hard of livestock that can be managed.
We need also to push for the policies that will recognise our culture for our way of living (moving from one part to another is keeping environment fertile) this should also be factored in legislation such that our people don’t lose their land just because they left it in search of pastures,” Fatuma Ibrahim emphasised