The Invisible – Integrated IDPs Slip Below the Radar

Nairobi Star (Nairobi)

Njonjo Kihuria

18 June 2011

analysis

Starting over is a harrowing experience both physically and mentally and not an undertaking for the faint of heart or frail of body. It becomes even more of an excruciating task for a man living in the biblical ‘bonus years’ of over 70. But despite all odds 75-year-old Philip Kamau Ng’ang’a, exudes extraordinary energy in rebuilding his life and that of his family.

Forced to abandon his multi million shilling investments in Kericho at the height of the 2007 post-election violence and to watch from the relative safety of a police station as buildings on his four commercial plots went up in flames, he now bears the tag of an integrated internally displaced person (IDP). “My 21-acre coffee farm and farmhouse were destroyed soon after I lost the buildings on the commercial plots. And all I have seen of them are pictures of the ruins, taken by others. Having witnessed what I did at my age, I have sworn never to return to Kericho,” says a calm if grave Ng’ang’a.

The tag of integrated IDP would, however, make sense if he had not been abandoned by a political party he served and a government that has since taken him round in circles, embroiling him in its bureaucracy, as both sides of the Kenyan coalition government play Russian roulette with persons displaced and dispossessed by a politically instigated crisis.

After living with relatives to the point of fatigue for the entire 2008, Ng’ang’a was finally able to dispose his commercial plots and buy three plots measuring 100 by 50 feet at the Mwariki Farm in Lanet. It is here that he is trying to rebuild his life, his advanced age and misfortunes of dispossession, notwithstanding.

The number of those who lost property during the post-election violence and who instead of going to the camps bought property albeit of much lower value and standard elsewhere or live with relatives or in rental quarters is not easy to come by. Most are resigned to their fate and choose to be left alone, while others are weary of giving out information as they have been conned several times by various organisations using their plight to get donor funding.

However, those we talked to were categorical that the government has all the names and figures that the police and provincial administration took in 2008 for compensation purposes. This has not been forthcoming.

The Gikuyu Council of Elders (Nakuru County) has been trying to put together these figures especially after meeting with the Deputy Prime Minister and minister for Finance Uhuru Kenyatta at the Gicheha Farm in Nakuru in February this year.

And although the list is not comprehensive, the elders have identified close to 900 such persons forcibly removed from their lands and their properties collectively worth hundreds of millions of shillings destroyed. One such large scale farmer and businessman in the Njoro area lost over Sh400 million through damaged machinery and equipment.

The chairman of the council Samwel Maigua told the Weekend Star that they were following up the issues that they raised with the deputy prime and hoped that they will get positive results. The council has been following the issue of compensation for the integrated IDPs with the various relevant government departments.

But the IDPs we talked to said the government’s promises to compensate them have remained at best unfulfilled and they would not be far from the truth should they accuse the government of outright lies. “How will this government that cannot even settle the IDPs from the camps on the plots they have bought because of internal wrangles be expected to get to us?” poses Hezron Ng’ethe Mbugua, an integrated IDP living in Subukia.

When his eight acre farm in Temoyotta Two scheme in Kuresoi was invaded and everything on it including houses, animal sheds, crops and livestock destroyed, he moved his family to Kabazi in Subukia where he has continued in a small way with his farming activity by leasing plots.

Mbugua would like to go back and settle on his farm, but the government that promised to compensate him back in 2008 seems to have gone back on that promise or is unable to fulfil it but is not putting it in so many words.

On the other side of the province in Lanet, Ng’ang’a would under no circumstances go back to Kericho, a town he invested in for 48 years before he was thrown out of “like a dog.”

Ng’ang’a an independence struggle detainee of the colonial government went to Kericho in 1960 where he initially worked as a salesman, before becoming an entrepreneur who, over time, bought plots in the town, put up commercial and rental houses and eventually bought the 21-acre farm at Kipkelion. “I planted coffee on the farm, built a residential house and put up a coffee factory, but all these were destroyed during the 2007/08 chaos,” he recalls, sitting in a chair tilted be the unevenness of his ‘sitting room’ floor.

This, however, was not the first time the Ng’ang’a family was dealing with arson by unfriendly neighbours. In 1991 his farmhouse had been brought down, again through politically instigated violence. He, however, returned after two months and rebuilt his home.

But 2007 was different both in the ferocity and magnitude of the destruction and that to him clearly indicated that he and his tribesmen were persona non grata in that region. “I was the Party of National Unity (PNU) coordinator in Kunyak division of Kericho and I believe that is the reason why my house was the first to be burnt down one hour after President Mwai Kibaki was announced the winner of the presidential election,” he says.

Earlier that day as tension built up, one of his sons had insisted on relocating the family SUV to safer ground despite the father’s protestations. By the time those who had gone to hide the vehicle came back, their house had been razed to the ground and the family did not salvage anything.

The Ng’ang’a family home was in the interior and for a week they stayed on the Kunyak Secondary School grounds from where they were evacuated to the Nakuru ASK showground. It was while the family was at the school that the buildings on their four plots in Kericho town were burnt down.

On being dumped at the showground, Ng’ang’a and his family were rescued by one of his cousins with whom they stayed at the Pipeline Estate in Nakuru for about six months. “By the sixth month, it was clear that the host family was fatigued which was understandable as I was with my wife, our son’s family and my aging and ailing mother. We were obviously a burden to them and we had to move out.”

And as he continued to look for reasonable buyers for his plots in Kericho, he moved in with his brother at an estate known as Teachers near the Nakuru Blankets Company and it was while living there that buyers for his plots were found. “I was selling my plots for less than half of the market price but I wanted by whatever means to buy and settle in my own place.”

Asked why he would not go back to Kericho, the old man responded, “The trauma is terrible; so bad that it can kill you. Where would I start from after what I had invested in for 48 years had been completely destroyed? “I had a small factory for making soap that I supplied to hospitals, schools and hotels, but even that was maliciously brought down. How would I go back to such a spiteful place? “In the years I stayed in Kericho, I got sons and daughters, but what would I show them as their father’s sweat for 48 years if I went back? How would I stay in that place seeing the people who destroyed me on a daily basis? I would not be able to forgive”. And forgiveness is something Ng’ang’a claims to have achieved since he settled at the Mwariki farm.

As an example of his forgiveness ability, Ng’ang’a tells the story of a man from another community who had assumed “safe custody” of his three dairy cows and several goats. “Every time I asked him about the livestock, he would tell me that he had sold them, used the money for an emergency, but would soon refund. In the knowledge that he has swindled me, I have forgiven him and written off the money”.

But it is not so easy to forgive the government of Kenya which has made absolutely no effort to compensate or even ease his life in any way.

In May 2008, on being asked to record his losses ostensibly so that he could be compensated, he did this with the police at Kericho and obtained a police abstract that shows he lost property of over 14 million shillings. “Since then we have visited all the government offices you can think of but nothing has come out of it. Does this government want to tell us it is unable to do anything to recover our losses or at least help us live slightly better lives?” he asks with a trace of bitterness.

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