Ogiek insist on court-ordered community settlement in Mau, not individual titles » Capital News

NAKURU, Kenya, Aug 24 — The indigenous Ogiek community living in different blocks of the Mau Forest has asked the government to honour court rulings by settling them on community land within the forest rather than allocating individual parcels.

Community leaders rejected government plans to distribute five- to ten-acre plots to individual members, saying the move goes against judgments delivered by both Kenyan and international courts.

Ogiek People Development Project Director, Daniel Kobei, questioned the government’s intention in delaying and altering the implementation of decisions made by the High Court in Nairobi and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights in Arusha, Tanzania.

“It is only fair for the government to follow the law. The courts granted the Ogiek community a customary title deed, which means community land. Even the National Land Commission advised the government that the court decision had to [be] implemented to the letter,” Kobei said.

Speaking during the 6th Annual Ogiek Cultural Day at Nkareta in Maasai Mau on Saturday, Kobei noted that the NLC had further indicated that the only legal way to alter the court award was to return to court and make a formal application.

In landmark rulings delivered in 2017 and 2022, the Arusha-based court directed the Kenyan government to issue the Ogiek with a collective title deed to their ancestral lands in the Mau Forest Complex.

The 2017 judgment, delivered after an eight-year legal battle, also required the state to compensate and formally recognise the Ogiek as an Indigenous people.

Sh58mn in damages

In June 2022, the reparations ruling awarded the community Sh57.85 million for material damages and Sh100 million for moral prejudice, funds to be channelled through a community development fund.

Kobei lamented that the delayed implementation continued to harm the Ogiek way of life.

“The Ogiek traditionally lived together on ancestral land, gathering, hunting, keeping bees and conserving the forest. Evictions in the late 1980s and early 1990s disrupted that way of life,” he said.

Ogiek Council of Elders Chairperson, John Lobolo, echoed the demand for ancestral land restoration, pledging that the community would conserve the Mau just as they had done for centuries.

“All the community wants is to get their ancestral land back and help the government in conserving and protecting it,” Lobolo said.

He added that the cultural day was aimed at reviving and safeguarding Ogiek traditions for future generations.

“One cannot disconnect the Ogiek from the Mau because it is their home, their supermarket, and their hospital,” Lobolo said.

The cultural festival brought together members from six counties neighbouring the Mau Forest Complex to share songs, stories and memories of their heritage.