When fight for land invites murder and mayhem in families

It’s an unlikely story, that of a retired preacher who is alleged to have beaten his son to death due to what neighbours believe is a land dispute.

According to the story, reported in the media last week, the retired Anglican Church of Kenya evangelist from Murang’a County is said to have tied his son to a tree and, together with another son, beaten him to death.

Kenyans wondered what the world was coming to, with many at a loss on why anyone would go to the extent of taking the life of one of their kin over a piece of land, “which you will leave behind when you die” as one reader put it.

LAND DISPUTES

But this is certainly not a unique story; many similar stories have been reported in the media over the years, stories of parents killing their children due to land disputes.

In 2018 for instance, a man in Kisii County was accused of hitting his son on the head with an axe, killing him. The young man had dared ask his father to hand over a piece of land he felt was due to him.

And in a bizarre case reported a year ago, a man from Trans-Nzoia County is alleged to have beaten his five-year-old son to death after he inquired why his father wanted to sell the family’s piece of land.

But it is not just parents — cases of children taking the lives of their mothers and fathers over such disputes are common too.

In March 2019, for instance, a man from Kipkelion East constituency is said to have killed his 70-year-old father and then set the elderly man’s house on fire after he refused to hand over to him a three-acre plot. According to a neighbour, the son had been pestering his father to hand him his inheritance for a long time.

BLOOD TIES

As for the blood ties between siblings, they are not sacred when land is involved. In 2018, a 34-year-old man from Migori County was allegedly murdered by his brother following a land dispute.

The victim of a machete, attack is said to have been engaged in a protracted row with his brother over a piece of land their father had left behind, and not even spirited intervention from elders could settle the dispute.

Land, says Dr Gladys Nyachieo, a sociologist and senior lecturer at Multi-Media University, is an emotive issue, and has been for a long time.

“African culture dictates that you are nothing without land. Land is tied to our identity and success. For instance, those who retire without having bought a piece of land and put up a house are viewed as failures,” she says.

Owning land, she says, is the way “an African man” uses to secure his future and that of his offspring and future generations.

DEEP EMOTIONS

An article published in 2015 in The Conversation, a network of not-for-profit media outlets, titled, “Why land evokes such deep emotions in Africa”, reads in part: “For Africans land is everything. Depriving one of land means robbing them of their person-hood, being and identity — in other words their full humanity.”

Dr Nyachieo could not agree more, pointing out that the fact that land is shrinking by the day makes the situation dire.

“That land is getting more and more scarce by the day has given rise to competition, a factor that is making many desperate enough to kill,” the don says.

Men, she observes, are more likely to kill for land than women.

“For the men, it is an ego thing. They have been made to think that if they have no land, they are not man enough, which is enough of a motivator to go as far as killing to own a piece of land or keep the one they have,” she explains, adding that while women are not likely to kill for land, should they decide to, they are more likely to hire a hitman to do the job rather than do it themselves.

MURDERED

She observes that in the past, when land was communal, there was no motivation to kill because everyone had their fair share, but with the onset of capitalism, people started accumulating land for themselves, leading to inequality in society, where the men owned most of the land.

In December 2019, Kilifi County government officials revealed that more than half of the people murdered in this county are killed due to land-related issues.

“During our inquiry, the community disclosed that it’s all about male family members wanting to take control of land belonging to their fathers,” said Mr Silas Nderi, the county probation officer, who was quoted in the story published in the Nation.

Fr Sahaya Selvam, a Catholic priest who has a PhD in the psychology of religion, blames ownership and privatisation of land on such ungodly acts, pointing out that ownership of land is unbiblical and un-African.

“According to the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament, land is not supposed to be possessed permanently. We’re mere tenants on the land,” says the priest, who is also the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Academic and Student Affairs at Tangaza University College.

“In African society, ownership of land did not exist. It’s a colonial concept, which was the beginning of inequality, which, in turn, gave rise to other forms of social injustice,” he asserts.