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{
    "id": 118591,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/118591/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 269,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "We heard on this podium, the late J.M. Kariuki who was talking on behalf of the landless and the Mau Mau. I remember him saying that Kenya is going to be a country of 10 millionaires and 10 million beggars. I think during those days of J.M. Kariuki, billionaires did not exist. However, if he were to rise from the dead today, he will see that Kenya is now a land of few billionaires and 30 million-plus people struggling below the poverty line. He would feel that he was, indeed, prophetic. The issue of landlessness and squatters can be directly traced to the colonial policies for rewarding home-guards against the Mau Mau children. Issues affecting IDPs are being addressed through the papers. The implementation will require a lot of courage and decisiveness. One of the contributors said that the people with large tracts of land should be persuaded to hand it over. That will never happen. Who can willingly hand over a piece of land to someone else? Are we aware that they fought for getting that land? When those Kikuyu peasants and Kalenjins fight in the Rift Valley, next door, we have Lord Delamere who owns a whole district! People who cross around there are poachers and they are hunted down. Why have we not addressed that issue? Now, we have the issue of Mau. In fact, the issue of Mau is quite tragic because the Kipsigis peasants were shown fertile land on the hills. They sold their small pieces of land so that they could go and get better pieces of land where their maize could do better. So, they bought the land. Indeed, we are saying that they should leave the Mau. However, they sold the land where they came from. So, what are we doing? We are creating another round of landlessness and IDPs. Let us look at those people with huge tracts of land. The Government should acquire that land and settle the IDPs, whether they were affected by the post election violence or from the Mau saga. It is very unfair for land to be roamed about by wild animals when our own people are dying by the roadside. That is all we are saying. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, housing IDPs and holding harambees like the one we did the other day, is not enough. We have to address the root causes. We could sort out the issues of the people living in the tents and roadsides today and then tomorrow, we get another round of IDPs arising out of our foolish politics. I think the root cause of all this is a primitive political system and a primitive political culture that we have tolerated in this country for a long time. I have been very humbled by the steps that are being taken to get this country a new Constitution. I hope that through the new Constitution, we will create a new political culture for this country, a country where we will repair the walls which we have, over the years, built against each other. The issue about political mobilization through ethnic blocks has to be addressed very seriously because time has come for us to start talking about one Kenya, one nation. Let us look for other tools of political mobilization apart from appealing to your own tribe because, it is through that we will create other IDPs and issues about land again and again. Time has come for us to look afresh at the manner in which we organize our own political parties, political messages and the way we mobilize our people to support us. That is what is causing all the problems that we have."
}