Kibera Nubian community invites Commission to address land question

BY SAADA IBRAHIM

We either solve this problem now or never—this was the clear message given to the Nubian community of Nairobi’s Kibera informal settlement by the National Land Commission.

Speaking at a stakeholders’ forum convened to seek a permanent solution to the decades-long quest for rights over land ownership in Kibera, Commissioner Abdulkadir Khalif from the National Land Commission called upon the Nubian community to get out of their “comfort zones” and start thinking progressively about the land question in Kibra.

 

“The National Land Commission is a new institution. It has a wide mandate to deal with land issues across the country, but it also has its limitations. For the Nubian people to solve their problem about land, they must be well prepared and willing to work with the Commission within the available legal structures,” Commissioner Khalif said.

For a community whose forefathers settled in Kibra as early as 1918, the Nubians of Kibra are arguably the only ethnic group to have Nairobi as their “shags”—the Kenyan slang for ancestral home.

In this regard, Mr Khalif called upon the forum to elect a trusted and all-inclusive committee that would work with the Commission towards finding a lasting solution to the dispute surrounding the Nubian land of Kibra.

“I want you to establish a committee that will be working together with us. The Commission does not have an instant or ready-made solution to your problem—the work of the Commission is to look for a solution, and the solution will only come from you the people of Kibra,” he emphasized.

The size of the land the Nubians of Kibra are claiming rights of ownership is a very controversial issue. Many Nubians of Kibra, citing unconfirmed colonial records, say that their forefathers were allocated 4000 acres of land way back in 1918, but that size has kept on shrinking over the years due to encroachment by people from other communities.

As a result of the encroachment, Nubians are currently squeezed on approximately 300 acres in Kibra, thus posing a huge crisis for the community as their population continues to grow yet, unlike other Kenyan communities, they don’t have any other land to fall back to.

“If nothing is done to secure and safeguard the remaining 300 acres of land in Kibra for the Nubian community, then we face extinction in Nairobi because we don’t know where our future generation will stay,” said Jamaaldin Yahya, a prominent defender of Nubian land rights in Kibra.

Indeed, the threat of extinction is very real for the Nubians of Nairobi. Because of the uncertainties occasioned by deprivation of land ownership rights which leads to socio-economic marginalization,   many young Nubian men are scared of venturing into marriage and starting families. 

“The situation we live in makes it very difficult for young Nubian men of Kibra to venture into family life. Young Nubian women also prefer to get married to men from other communities where they think their future would be secured. At this rate, the Nubian gene of Kibra is threatened with extinction,” says Yusuf. 

“Surely, how can a young Nubian man of Kibra convince a woman to get married to him if he himself is not guaranteed of a home? Our future as Nubian youth of Kibra is very precarious because we are not sure whether the land we live on will still be ours in the next ten years. So, until we are guaranteed of our lands rights, many of us will not risk going into marriage and having children,” says Abubakaar.

It is in view of their precarious situation that Kibra Nubians have called for an urgent and sustainable answer to the land question in this area.

Going forward, the community wants the National Land Commission to start by surveying and demarcating the 300 acres of land on which they live today. After that, they want the Commission to establish the legal position of this land and then proceed to secure its title in favour of the Nubian community. Thereafter, a serious urban development plan can be agreed upon to see how the land can be used utilized for the benefit of the community.

The community also wants the Commission to establish how Nubians lost most of the 4000 acres given to their forefathers, and thereafter establish a mechanism of compensation. 

Source - The New Dawn.