NAIROBI, Kenya — The National Land Commission (NLC) has directed the government to carry out a fresh verification of the Ogiek community register to identify members who have yet to benefit from any resettlement programme.
In a determination dated March 15, 2024, the outgoing NLC commissioners instructed the Ministries of Lands and Interior to scrutinise the existing register, separating those who have already received land allocations from those who remain unserved.
The Lands Ministry has been tasked with identifying suitable land for resettling all verified Ogiek members who have never benefited from a settlement scheme.
“The Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development… shall identify appropriate land(s) to resettle the Ogiek community who have not benefited in any settlement scheme,” the determination reads.
The panel that issued the directive included Commissioners Prof James Tuitoek, Esther Murugi, Tiyah Galgalo, and Hubbie Al-Haji. Most of the commission’s members, including Chairperson Gershom Otachi and Vice Chairperson Gertrude Nduku, completed their six-year term on November 14. Only Murugi and Galgalo remain in office, each with one year left.
The commission had adopted a comprehensive list of 25,019 Ogiek members from the Mau Forest Complex, excluding those residing in Mt Elgon and Elgeyo Marakwet counties.
In addition, the NLC urged the Kenya Forest Service to consider granting community user rights within the Mau Forest for activities such as medicinal plant extraction, beekeeping, and religious practices, in line with the Forest Conservation and Management Act, 2016.
The NLC is constitutionally mandated to investigate historical land injustices. Between 2017 and 2021, the commission received multiple claims from Ogiek clans alleging forceful evictions from ancestral lands, including the 2009 Mau Forest removals.
Parallel cases have also been pursued in courts, Parliament, and at the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which in 2017 ruled in favour of the Ogiek.
The court found that the Kenyan government had violated the community’s land rights, ordering compensation exceeding Sh157 million and mandating the identification, demarcation, and titling of their ancestral land in consultation with the community.
