I am filing my column from a roadside eatery, sandwiched between the Kilifi Law Courts, the DCI lair, the county police headquarters, the Lands Office and the governor’s offices. It reminds of Shanzu where there is a police station, law courts and Shimo La Tewa Prison – not to mention Shimo La Tewa High School, whose illustrious alumni include one Bernard Mwinzi, journalism trainer and climate guru.
The alumni of the Shimo La Tewa include such luminaries Governor Mike Sonko and quite probably my father whom the British had the pleasure of jailing in most notorious jails of the Coast, because he had the temerity, unlike Oliver Twist who asked for more, to ask if it pleases sir for an African to have a spot of freedom, with a sprinkling of rights.
In theory Mr Mwinzi can be arrested, tried and incarcerated without the necessity of crossing the road. But, as usual, I digress.
I have come for a land case, which seems to be a pastime of the older demographic. I bought a then cheap piece of land in 2011 in some corner of Kilifi. If I am very honest, it was a dumb decision; you don’t ever buy land in Kilifi. But my over-active imagination had shown me pictures of a white-haired retired scribe, teaching children at the local school the beauty of grammar, introducing them to the magic of the story, of writing, creating. And then taking the boat out to catch fresh fish for the guest house, where he acted as proprietor and bellboy, lugging bags and parcels to keep fir.
What a load of nonsense. In short order, I learnt that the locals didn’t want my volunteer services, that behind my back they referred to me as “wale waKikuyu haramu ” (unclean Kikuyu) (if you want to annoy a Meru call him a Kikuyu).
In no time, I got a call from a very arrogant man who shouted abuse into my ear, “wewe kijana mjinga, unasema umenunua shamba? Unafikiria shamba ni shirt? ”.
I later learnt he had violently moved in, tore off my gate, cut it and resized and put it back, poured masons to decorate the walls, planted some flowers, knocked down some ancient walls, cut all the trees I had planted, marked roads and plots and started to bring and show buyers my land for a phantom “gated community”.
At the gate, he plastered a warning, “Armed Response”, meaning if you dare, you will face guns, which he had in plenty, apparently he carried two pistols. Isorait, I told myself. Eight years later, I am quietly sitting in court, prepared, if need be, to be in court for the next 40 years to make the same case my father broke rock in a gulag to make.
It is not stupid to own property, I have rights. And no, you can’t take them away. Even if you have a pistol.
I have seen things; which things have sobered me and shown me that what we need is not a fight; what we need is to support and grow the institutions we have. Our protection does not come from fighting, our protections comes from developing and growing those institutions. Kenya’s lower courts will never fully grow and they will never truly deliver justice, until Senior Counsel make a habit of taking cases and physically attending, not virtually, proceedings in the lower courts.
The lower courts provide justice to the majority. If top lawyers continue to look down upon them, the standards will never rise.
Another white head, this one with the more ambitious dream of living in Malindi, bought property with a house built by an Italian family. After being away for a while, he went back and found the house was just a pile of stones, someone had gone into the property, knocked down the house and taken over. He ran to the registry, the land was still in the original names, thank God. He went to the police.
Initially, they were interested and promising heaven and earth, then they got bored, stopped taking calls and became completely unavailable. In the meantime, the new “owner” has warned the real owner not to step near the property and he wasn’t joking either.
We are slowly being disinherited by an emergent colonialism, this time not by Europeans but by a conurbation of criminals. They are taking our investments and consigning us to a life of poverty. The weakest point are the registries where staff allow criminals to take away sacrosanct documents and replace them with fakes. The police look the other way or help the criminals to invade.
My advice to anybody interested in land is, please find another dream. If you can, stay away from the Coast and some specific upcountry counties as well.
We are not a trust society, we are a crook society. Everything is for sale, especially your most valued papers.
