The Chief declared me dead before selling my land to a cement company

By Isaiah Esipisu

A victim of land grabbing at the Coast

In a vast village blessed with coral limestone in Kilifi County, Charo Toya Tsofa, his wife, and their seven children have lived in absolute fear since 2010, when the area chief declared them dead, before selling their land to a foreign investor.

It was towards the end of November, during a legal proceeding that the Mombasa Cement Ltd produced evidence in court to explain the circumstance in which the company acquired land that rests on millions of tons of coral limestone used for manufacturing cement.

They produced several letters, one of them dated 14, January 2010 addressed to ‘Whom it may concern’ and signed by Chief Raphael Karisa of Takaungu Chief’s Office explaining that Charo Toya Tsofa, the owner of Plot No 437 was diseased.

It reads: “The above plot owner had one child before he met his death, named Josephine Mere Charo ID No 2245724.”

However, our investigations have revealed that the said Josephine Mere Charo has no relationship with Tsofa.

The letter further reads: “Later, his wife after three years succumbed to breast cancer.”

But according to Charo, his wife Jumwa Charo, a mother of seven is still alive, and she has never battled cancer.

But the letter goes on to explain, “The daughter Josephine Mere Charo has then express hairship pertaining to the above property along the other properties of the diseased parent. That she wishes to sell the land to Mombasa Cement Limited. We have no objection to the information availed to us as we find it convincing and undoubted,” reads the letter.

It summerises by saying, “Kindly accord the said claimant your kind consideration upon your approval,” then a rubber stamp and a signature.

The letter therefore gave the authority to successfully facilitate a land transfer agreement between Josephine Mere Charo and the Mombasa Cement Limited at a cost of Sh40,000 per acre.

In a similar letter whose copy is also in our possession, Chief Karisa expressly indicated that Sulubu Kitsao Kiti had died, and that he had no child of his own. As a result, Kiti’s uncle Evans Katana Kalume had decided to sell the land to Mombasa Cement Ltd.

But according to Kiti (who is still alive), he has no blood relationship with the said ‘uncle.’

Sidi Katana, a widow and a mother of eight children was also declared dead by the same chief in a letter that facilitated sell of her land to the cement company.

A similar letter was also written to facilitate selling land belonging to Karisa Mzungu to the same cement company.

“We have no idea why the chief, a man we respect so much decided to do this to us,” said Samuel Kisaa who was forcefully evicted and his property destroyed as the company wanted him to pave way for the coral limestone quarrying on his ancestral land.

However, he was lucky because through support of right based organisations including ActionAid, he successfully secured a court injunction which restricted his eviction.

“The road from the quarry used to ferry coral lime stones to company passes through my land. But when I queried one of the company officials, he threatened me with a gun in the presence of administration officers,” he said.

The 70 year old father of 18 who was born and raised up in this village, farming and grazing animals for survival owns 45 acres of land, all which is targeted for the coral limestone mining by the Mombasa Cement Limited.

“If we are evicted, then we are doomed because we have nowhere else to go. Only the government can be able to rescue us from this mess,” he said.

All the residents here live in fear, hoping that one day, the ongoing court battles will be able to secure them from the rich investors who are out to exploit natural resources on their land.

“It is not easy, but we acknowledge the support we’ve so far received from ActionAid, which facilitates our people to attend court proceedings and it has been on the forefront in mobilising communities to work together,” said Kiti.

According to Kitasi Swaleh Wanga, the Project Manager, Land and Natural resources at ActionAid, creating further incentives for large-scale land acquisitions will create only more hardship, distress and poverty for rural communities in poor countries.

“Instead of subjecting smallholder farmers to torture and evicting them inhumanly, investment, including access to land and productive resources should be targeted directly at small-scale food producers themselves because they hold the key to inclusive development, tackling hunger, and to ensuring future sustainability of the global food system,” he says.

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