Kisumu clan elders back Raila in Molasses plant land dispute » Capital News

KISUMU, Kenya Jun 17 – Elders drawn from Korando and Kogony clans in Kisumu have come to the defense of former Prime Minister Raila Odinga over the Molasses plant land.

Recently, Raila donated 5 acres of the land to the government to construct affordable housing units.

However, a section of the community threatened to derail the government project on the said land, terming the process illegal.

They accused the developers and the government of seizing ancestral land without consulting the community.

On Monday, elders drawn from the two clans disowned those who spoke on behalf of the community, terming their move selfish with no substance.

“We are not aware of these two people and we have deliberated as a community to disown their statement,” said Paul Akeyo, the community spokesperson.

Akeyo says the land in question was taken by the government in the late 1970s for the molasses project.

He says the two clans gave out the land voluntarily and they were paid at the market rate at the time by the government before they moved out.

The government would later auction the land plus the plant, which the family of the late opposition doyen politician Jaramogi Oginga Odinga purchased at the fall of the hammer.

“Now, for one to come and start making unsubstantiated allegations that the two clans want their land back is day dreaming,” said Akeyo.

The two clans say they support the planned project by the government to build affordable houses on the land terming the move development aimed at creating jobs for the locals.

Akeyo says they will be demanding for minutes from those claiming the two clans want their land back, to ascertain their position.

“In the meantime, we can categorically say that the two clans at no point had demanded back their land,” he said.

Patricia Obure and Benedicto Odongo are some of the surviving locals who gave out their land to the government.

“I was paid and we constructed two houses with my husband,” said Obure.

Odongo remembered with nostalgia, the Sh. 9,000 he received from the government for the piece of land he forfeited.

“It was a lot of money at that time, it helped me to purchase a new land, where I built my home and titling land up to now,” he said.

On many occasions, Raila has made it clear that his family acquired the molasses plant and land legally.

At one point, alongside his brother Oburu Odinga they moved to court to block the government from implementing the Ndung’u land report, which had listed Molasses plant land as grabbed public land.