OPERATION FIRIMBI Bulletin March 2016 1 B U L L E T I N OPERATION FIRIMBI Blow the Whistle Campaign for JUST LAND REFORM against LAND GRABBING and CORRUPTION in Kenya Firimbi Bulletin published by Mazingira Institute PO Box 14550 Nairobi 00800 Tel: 254 20 4443219/26/29, Fax: 254 20 4444643 E-mail [email protected], Website: www.mazinst.org Issue No. 43 March 2016 R E S T O R E G R A B B E D L A N D N O W J U S T L A N D R E F O R M N O W S T O P L A N D G R A B B I N G Land grabbing in Nairobi City County O n Friday, November 27, 2015 during his historic visit to Kenya. Pope Francis highlighted to a global audience the pervasiveness of the blatant grabbing of public land, including playgrounds set aside for primary schools by well connected elites. He said, “let us pray and work to ensure every family has access to dignified housing, drinking water and other basic services. I am aware that faceless developers have attempted to give themselves the playgrounds of your children’s schools”. Some of these speculators are perched atop the political ech- elons of this country. As the angry public protests illustrated, Kenyans from pre-teen pupils to ageing grandmothers have loudly said no to the culture of impunity, swelling the ranks of the Piga Firimbi (Blow the Whistle) brigade who are determined to name and shame the agents of corruption, public theft and bad governance. In a very large measure this is a great vindication of the long campaign initiated by the Mazingira Institute in the mid nineties known as the Operation Firimbi campaign. Indeed this very bulletin is an offspring of that grass roots mobilization effort. Unfortunately, despite the trending Arap Singh hash tags on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere on social media it appears there are many more powerful politicians, big moneyed real estate developers and other pin striped white collar criminals determinate to loot and pillage Kenyan land and natural resources. The April 1, 2016 edition of the Star newspaper reports on page 16 that the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority wants the National Land Commission to review the land on which Weston Hotel (owned by Deputy President Ruto) sits. In their February 19, 2015 letter to the NLC, KCAA wants the commission to facilitate issue of title deeds for Kenya Civil Aviation Authority properties. “We lodged a formal complaint requesting your commission’s intervention to facilitate issuance of title documents for KCAA proper- ties by commencing investigations to establish legality of all grants in respect of land, with a view to revoking any illegal allocations.” In a revealing story, Citizen TV did an interview with William Ruto who proudly claimed ownership of Weston Hotel. The property later achieved national notoriety fol- lowing a highly publiclized student led protest who were against the grabbing of the playing grounds of the adjacent Langata Primary School. Part of the motivation for the land grab, according to some keen Nairobi observers was for the school ground to be used as a parking lot for the Weston Hotel. For example, recently residents of Pumwani and Eastleigh estates protested against grabbing of Pumwani Maternity Hospital and Eastleigh open-air market land. Fifteen acres meant for the expansion of the hospital were allegedly grabbed, resulting in stalling of the expansion plans. The land was supposed to house an administration block, in- tensive care unit, operating theatre, mortuary, staff houses and playground. Only 5 acres are available now. In January 2016, the Nairobi County Governor, Dr. Evans Kidero announced that Nairobi Governor he had closed down two rooms-10 and 500-at City Hall that were alleg- edly being used by cartels to carry out their operations. He said that “there are people at the city hall who are collecting Ksh 50 million every month for garbage collection yet they are not seeing the job through. Cartels have also invaded the lands docket and are being involved in land grabbing and fraudulent transactions.” In February 2016, Nairobi County National Assembly Majority Leader Elias Otieno was accused of illegally evict- ing small scale traders in Dagoretti from their premises in his apparent move to grab land. Josephat Omondi one of the affected traders in the area said the MCA was using hired goons to storm into business premises and destroy- ing property. Demolition of mansions by Ministry of Roads, Public Works and Housing. The government action to restore grabbed public land recieved overwhelming support from the people.
Transcript
OPERATION FIRIMBI Bulletin March 2016 1
B U L L E T I N
OPERATION FIRIMBIBlow the Whistle Campaign
for JUST LAND REFORM
against LAND GRABBING
and CORRUPTION in KenyaFirimbi Bulletin published by Mazingira Institute PO Box 14550 Nairobi 00800
On Friday, November 27, 2015 during his historic visit to Kenya. Pope Francis highlighted to a global audience the pervasiveness of the blatant
grabbing of public land, including playgrounds set aside for primary schools by well connected elites.
He said, “let us pray and work to ensure every family has access to dignifi ed housing, drinking water and other basic services. I am aware that faceless developers have attempted to give themselves the playgrounds of your children’s schools”.
Some of these speculators are perched atop the political ech-elons of this country. As the angry public protests illustrated, Kenyans from pre-teen pupils to ageing grandmothers have loudly said no to the culture of impunity, swelling the ranks of the Piga Firimbi (Blow the Whistle) brigade who are determined to name and shame the agents of corruption, public theft and bad governance.
In a very large measure this is a great vindication of the long campaign initiated by the Mazingira Institute in the mid nineties known as the Operation Firimbi campaign. Indeed this very bulletin is an offspring of that grass roots mobilization effort.
Unfortunately, despite the trending Arap Singh hash tags on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere on social media it appears there are many more powerful politicians, big moneyed real estate developers and other pin striped white collar criminals determinate to loot and pillage Kenyan land and natural resources.
The April 1, 2016 edition of the Star newspaper reports on page 16 that the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority wants the National Land Commission to review the land on which Weston Hotel (owned by Deputy President Ruto) sits. In their February 19, 2015 letter to the NLC, KCAA wants the commission to facilitate issue of title deeds for Kenya Civil Aviation Authority properties. “We lodged a formal complaint requesting your commission’s intervention to facilitate issuance of title documents for KCAA proper-ties by commencing investigations to establish legality of all grants in respect of land, with a view to revoking any illegal allocations.”
In a revealing story, Citizen TV did an interview with William Ruto who proudly claimed ownership of Weston Hotel. The property later achieved national notoriety fol-lowing a highly publiclized student led protest who were against the grabbing of the playing grounds of the adjacent Langata Primary School. Part of the motivation for the
land grab, according to some keen Nairobi observers was for the school ground to be used as a parking lot for the Weston Hotel.
For example, recently residents of Pumwani and Eastleigh estates protested against grabbing of Pumwani Maternity Hospital and Eastleigh open-air market land. Fifteen acres meant for the expansion of the hospital were allegedly grabbed, resulting in stalling of the expansion plans. The land was supposed to house an administration block, in-tensive care unit, operating theatre, mortuary, staff houses and playground. Only 5 acres are available now.
In January 2016, the Nairobi County Governor, Dr. Evans Kidero announced that Nairobi Governor he had closed
down two rooms-10 and 500-at City Hall that were alleg-edly being used by cartels to carry out their operations. He said that “there are people at the city hall who are collecting Ksh 50 million every month for garbage collection yet they are not seeing the job through. Cartels have also invaded the lands docket and are being involved in land grabbing and fraudulent transactions.”
In February 2016, Nairobi County National Assembly Majority Leader Elias Otieno was accused of illegally evict-ing small scale traders in Dagoretti from their premises in his apparent move to grab land. Josephat Omondi one of the affected traders in the area said the MCA was using hired goons to storm into business premises and destroy-ing property.
Demolition of mansions by Ministry of Roads, Public Works and Housing. The government action to restore grabbed public land recieved overwhelming
support from the people.
OPERATION FIRIMBI Bulletin March 20162
In a separate development, Nairobi Senator Mike Sonko was reported in the media as leading a demonstration against the grabbing of a portion of land set aside for a water reservoir in Nairobi’s Loresho area. Bulldozers and trucks were on the land on which construction had been halted after residents complained. At least one acre has been hived off the reservoir that serves Loresho and Spring Valley estates. Senator Sonko, MCA Alvin Palapala and residents stormed the site and ejected workers of Shital Bhandari who has claimed ownership of the land. The senator was quoted as saying: “Who is Bhandari that he can disrespect the EACC, the Senate, the NLC and the court which is-sued an injunction to stop any construction on the land?” Loresho Residents Association chairman Richard Njoba said the High Court, EACC, NEMA and the National Land Commission moved to stop construction on the one-acre portion.
It is against the above ongoing backdrop that we should see the Nairobi Declaration on Land Grabbing and Just Governance in Africa which took place in Limuru from the 22nd to 26th of November 2015 bringing together over 100 organizations from various civil society organiza-tions and different faith traditions from Africa, Asia, the America and Europe.
Among the declarations, the participants opposed land grabbing by investors, traditional leaders and govern-ments talking on behalf of the people and assuming that everybody has something to gain from land grabbing and its subsequent investments.
They stated that Africa was the main target of land grab-bing worldwide, with foreign multinationals as the major catalysts of this “shameful mass acquisition of prime farmlands that is on course of ripping Africa and its future generations of its livelihoods and identity. Most of the land handed out to them is being used to produce goods for export, mainly non-food goods such as minerals and raw (agricultural) materials for foreign industries as well as to develop infrastructure. We are also aware that locals, governments and fi nancial institutions play an important role in this phenomenon.”
They said that many public policies and frameworks de-veloped by African governments and major powers – such as the G8 and international institutions like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization and the World Economic Forum – facilitate directly or indirectly massive land acquisitions which are exploiting earth resources and land in an unsustainable way.
They declared that they were seeking for frameworks that allow communities to keep or regain access, control and ownership over their land and other natural resources in order to feed their families, their communities and eventu-ally, to feed the world; the right to food and to water to be fully realized as an indivisible part of human rights; local community-owned and driven investments to fl ourish; communities to invest in other levels of the food chain in their own countries; an increase in resilience of rural com-munities avoiding rural exodus and forceful and inhumane evictions; gender equality and provides opportunities to youth and communities’ right to protect their identity and cultural heritage.
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Scenes from the protest at attempted grabbing of Langata Primary School playground.
OPERATION FIRIMBI Bulletin March 2016 3
Construction of boundary walls and grading of road by a developer claiming the Karura River riparian reserve, dispite a directive by the Nairobi City Council,
not to do so.
Whistle blowers: Members and residents of Gigiri Village Association and Operation Firimbi activists in a protest march on UN Avenue to Karura River.
A shocked stall owner Jean Wanjiru, cries when she Þ nds her stall
ß attened.
Prof. Wangari Mathai and Davinder Lamba confer with the lead lawyer Pheroze Nowrojee over a case seeking to stop the proposed exci-
sions of gazetted forests.
OPERATION FIRIMBI Bulletin March 20164
In Kenya impunity by powerful well connected
forces is cynically present.
On January 21 2015, the long struggle to save
Kibarage wetland took a dramatic turn when for-
mer Cabinet Secretary for Lands led a team of
National Youth Service ofÞ cers and a bulldozer to
No action on grabbed Peponi land
Dear Sir/Madam
RE: STOP DESTRUCTION OF THE KIBAGARE WETLAND
For years, renowned Kenyan environmental activist and 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner, the late Professor Wangari Maathai, fought
to protect over 10 acres of wetland on Lower Kabete Road/Peponi Road in Nairobi]
Kibagare wetland is an ecological haven for numerous tree, plant and bird species, as well as a source of income for an estimated
300 plant and pot sellers and other people who have been working in the area for over 15 years.
It has come to our attention that the piece of land was allocated to the Presbyterian Church of East Africa (PCEA) by the Kenyan
government in compensation for land the church had lost elsewhere.
Note that your action is against the Environmental Ministries of the Presbyterian Mission whose intention is to work to inspire and equip
all congregations and presbyteries including the PCEA to work for Ecological Justice for all of God’s earth.
Other functions of the ministry include:
To produce, promote and distribute faith-based environmental resources for individuals, congregations and presbyteries
To link Presbyterians to resources on issues such as water, climate change, fracking, and even eco-justice worship
To oversee the Earth Care Congregations program, which encourages Presbyterian churches PCEA included to care for God’s earth and
certi� es those that have a� rmed the Earth Care Pledge and taken holistic actions in earth care in the � elds of worship, education, facili-
ties and outreach
To establish an Eco-Justice network dedicated to environmental wholeness with social justice, seeking to be a prophetic voice for sub-
stantive change in the church and in the world among others.
This therefore means that the action of PCEA does not only contravene the Kenyan law but also the tenets to which PCEA subscribes to
hence this petition to PCEA to drop the planned construction of luxury apartments at the Kibagare Wetland as it shall lead to wanton
destruction of biodiversity.
We therefore advise that PCEA STOPS with immediate e� ect the planned construction of the luxury apartments as this is bad PR to the
PCEA especially given the fact that we have informed all the Presbyterian Networks across the globe.
We are open to discussing this issue in a constructive way, should you wish to get in touch with us.
grabbed piece of public land and ordered the de-
molition of the perimeter wall.
Nothing much has been heard since. The founda-
tion arm of the PCEA which is behind the contro-
versial property is still defending its ownership in
our courts.
Earlier, Karanja Njoroge, the Executive Director of
the Centre for Environmental Action had Þ red off
the following letter to the PCEA on the 4th of July
2014:
OPERATION FIRIMBI Bulletin March 2016 5
The National Land Commission responded to the
Kibagare wetland controversy by visiting the site
and later on July 8, 2014 issued a letter copied to
Nairobi Governor Dr. Evans Kidero and the OCS,
Spring Valley Police Station advising that any ac-
tivities on the Kibarage River site Peponi Road be
suspended.
Despite this, the Presbyterian Church of East
Africa acquired ofÞ cial approval from NEMA for
the construction, in violation of NEMA’s own 2010
Þ ndings that Kibarage is a wetland and should not
be developed and also in violation of a 2001 inde-
pendent Environmental Impact Assessment.
All this was unfolding in the context of pro-
tests and struggles by the Green Belt Movement,
Malinger Institute, Centre for Environmental
Action, the Committee for the Implementation of
the Constitution and other activists. On Saturday,
July 12, 2014 Onyango Oloo, a senior writer and
researcher with Operation Firimbi and Davinder
Lamba, Executive Director of the Malinger Institute
were assaulted by PCEA goons at Kibarage wet-
lands in Westlands.
Oloo ended in the Casualty section of MP Shah
Hospital after being treated for a fresh arrow
wound from an assault inß icted by a horde of
Maasai speaking militia wielding machetes, bows
and arrows, iron bars, rungus and other crude
weapons. His attackers are employees of the PCEA
Church with an assignment to guard a controversial
piece of public land in Kibarage on Peponi Road
across from the Westgate Mall. Davinder Lamba,
the Executive Director of the Malinger Institute,
founder and leading light of the Operation Firimbi
campaign against land grabbing and corruption was
set upon by the same vicious assailants who clob-
bered him on the back, shoulder and upper arm.
In preparing for this special edition of Firimbi we
contacted Aziz Tom Chavangi to provide with us a
follow up what had happened since Charity Ngilu
dramatic public act of early 2015.
By time of going to press, his response was still
forthcoming,
Members of the Commission of Inquiry into Illegal and Iregular Alocation of Public Land, at the grand villa awaiting completion, on Wayiyaki Way link road, in the upmarket Spring Valley surburb.
Stall owners protest outside the Law Courts after Þ lling contemp proceedings against the City Council’s, Francis
Karani and Salami Enterprises Ltd.
Demolition of the grand villa and adjoining houses commences. The villa is priced at thirty million shillings.
OPERATION FIRIMBI Bulletin March 20166
Scenes from the protest at attempted grabbing of Langata Primary
School playground
Stall owners protest outside the Law Courts after Þ lling contempt
proceedings against the City Council’s, Francis Karani and
Salami Enterprises Ltd.
Operation Firimbi has been on the forefront of action to protect the
country’s forests. In 1999, NGO’s led by Operation Firimbi and the
Green Belt Movement organized demonstrations against the grab-
bing of Karura forest, which on some occassions turned violent,
OPERATION FIRIMBI Bulletin March 2016 7
Background of Nairobi City CountyNairobi, Kenya’s capital is among the smallest
of the forty seven counties.
By area it is 268.8 square miles. According to 2009
census Þ gures, Nairobi had a population of 3.375
million people, making it Kenya’s largest metro-
politan region, with a diverse multi-cultural and
cosmopolitan composition derived from virtually of
all the country’s racial, religious, ethnic and regional
communities.
A big percentage of Nairobians live in the low in-
come informal settlement and just like the country,
the majority of people who live, work and study in
the country are overwhelmingly young.
The Governor of the Nairobi County government is
Dr. Evans Kidero and the Senator is Mike Sonko.
Nairobi County has the highest number of constitu-
encies in the country at seventeen which are further
divided into eighty Þ ve electoral wards.
The constituencies are all which have Þ ve wards
each:
• Westlands Timothy Wanyonyi Wetangula
(ODM)
• Dagoretti North (Paul Arati Simba, ODM),
• Dagoretti South (Dennis Kariuki Waweru,
TNA),
• Langata, (Joash Odhiambo Olum, ODM),
• Kibra, (Kenneth Odhiambo Okoth, ODM)
• Roysambu (Isaac Waihenya Ndirangu,TNA),
• Kasarani (John Njoroge Chege, TNA),
• Ruaraka, (Tom Joseph Francis Kajwang’,
ODM)
• Embakasi South (Irshadali Mohamed
Sumra,ODM),
• Embakasi North (James Mwangi
Gakuya,TNA),
• Embakasi Central (John Ndirangu Kariuki,
TNA), Embakasi East (John Ogutu Omondi,
ODM),
• Embakasi West (George Theuri, TNA),
• Makadara, (Benson Mutura Kangara (TNA),
• Kamukunji (Yusuf Hassan Abdi, TNA),
• Starehe, (William Maina Kamanda, TNA)
• Mathare, (Steve KARIUKI ,ODM).
The Nairobi Women’s Representative in the National
