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Residents of Kenyatta Farm (formerly known as Kihiu Mwiri) in Gatanga lower Murang’a have expressed fears of losing their parcels of land to people laying ownership to the property.

The residents claim that some people have been coming to claim the parcels of land allocated to them while armed with title deeds for the same.

The locals who claim to be the bona fide owners of the land say they got their allotment letters from the government back in 2015 when it started the title issuance process.

Through a Rapid Result Initiate (RRI), former president Uhuru Kenyatta launched the exercise where he issued 3,000 title deeds and this gave hope to the other shareholders that they will also get their land ownership documents.

However close to a decade later, some of the residents are still waiting to get the document but they suspect some unscrupulous government officials might have colluded with private developers to corrupt the process.

Kimani wa Muthoni, one of the residents said the government did ground titling and all the legitimate shareholders were enlisted with a promise to have the title deed processed.

“The residents are being chased out of their homes by people who claim to be the real owners of the land and they produce the title deed as the evidence,” said Kimani.

“Local schools and churches have not been spared either and we are wondering where we will take our children if the land they are sitting on is taken by these private developers,” he added.

Eunice Mwihaki another resident says she was forced to demolish her two-roomed house fearing being attacked by a man who claimed to own her parcel of land.

“The man used to camp there armed with a machete threatening to harm me if I didn’t vacate the land and I had to move out,” said Mwihaki.

The residents now want the government through the Ministry of Lands to intervene in the matter and save them from losing their parcels of land.

“We want the original register to be used in verifying the real owners of the land and do away with the fraudsters,” said Francis Mwangi another resident.

They said if action is not taken, the situation might worsen and all of them rendered homeless despite being the rightful owners of the land.

He also said the government should hasten in processing the title deeds to save them the agony of living in fear of being expelled from their land,

For close to two decades the management of the land turned into a bloody affair with several of its directors killed in what was deemed to have stemmed from leadership wrangles. The government’s intervention was aimed at bringing an end to these killings but failure to complete title deed issuance could spell doom on the entire settlement scheme.