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"id": 1105270,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1105270/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Narok North, ODM",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Richard ole Kenta",
"speaker": {
"id": 420,
"legal_name": "Richard Moitalel ole Kenta",
"slug": "richard-moitalel-ole-kenta"
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"content": " Hon. Deputy Speaker, what is happening in Laikipia is deeper than what we think. In fact, it all emanates from the historical land injustices that were brought up through the 1904 and 1911 agreements. Those agreements were so unfair. They were pushed down the throats of the Maasai people. They are agreements that made them lose everything that was theirs. In fact, I do not know which Maasai was able to interpret things when they made the agreements. I do not know which Maasai was able to read at that time. So, it is like saying there that was no meeting of minds. There was not what we call a readers’ ad idem. There was no meeting of the minds; there was no consensus ad idem. Hon. Deputy Speaker, what is paining us most is the profiling of the Samburu people and the Maasais of Laikipia as illegal grazers in their own land. I believe that if the Kenyan people love the Samburus and the Maasais, then they should have also ensured that they bought their lands when they were buying from the land buying companies for their kinsmen. In fact, in the 1962 Lancaster Conference, the Maasai people were forced to walk out. Their leaders were told to walk out because they were told any Kenyan can settle anywhere. Yet, the agreement was very specific: that, at any time, when the British decided to leave the land, the land would revert back to the Maasais as long as they still existed as a race. The land never reverted back to the Maasais. A lot of money was actually brought from Britain. It was supposed to compensate those people. It was supposed to settle them. Other people were settled. So, that bitterness still persists today and it will not end anytime soon. When I saw the killing of innocent people, I think it was a Pokot who was being shot like an animal, and the Forces there were treating him like a wild animal, I realised that Kenya is at the brink of collapse. If we are not going to handle this thing in the right way, we are not going anywhere. We are just hardening our stands and I think the outcome will be terrible. You know, a few years ago, more than 49 policemen were killed. The firepower that was taken that time was very minimal compared to this time. What was so special about Laikipia this time that they took all their firepower, including the military, such that they even shot the livestock of the Maasai people, and the Samburus using artillery? Why would the Cabinet Secretary (CS) prove his manhood by destroying a community and their livelihoods? I think there is something wrong and it is something that we must not accept. My last plea is, and it is a plea to the pastoralist communities wherever you are: We have to look out for one another. If we do not look out for one another, you will kill yourselves. You will finish yourselves and everything that God has given you will go to other people. So, you must come together. I plead with the Samburu people, the Laikipia people, please, as Hon. Leshoomo has said, come together and talk because nobody else will talk for you. Do not let politics divide you. I represent Narok North today; tomorrow I will not be there. You cannot push your personal interests to create a situation whereby a community will be finished. So, I just request and plead with everybody concerned, let us bring our people together. There are people with land there and they have their shambas. They also need the protection of the law. They are protected by the Constitution. So, you do not need to graze animals on their land. But when we saw other people attacking livestock passing through the market there, maiming livestock and killing people, how do you expect them to react? Then you blame them. How do you expect the Samburu and the people of Laikipia to react when you are waylaying their cows, cutting them and doing all those The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}