A Senate committee has directed the Ministry of Lands to immediately settle internally displaced people (IDPs) still living in camps in Laikipia County.

The Senate committee on Lands, Environment and Natural Resources chair, Mohammed Faki, said there are 45 farms that were bought by the government in Laikipia for resettling the IDPs.

He said the Lands Cabinet Secretary Alice Wahome should have allocated the IDPs the farms and given allotment letters as they await the processing of the title deeds.

Faki spoke on Friday, May 30, 2025, when he visited an IDP camp in Salama location in Nyahururu sub-county of Laikipia.

He was accompanied by a committee member, Mariam Sheikh Omar.

Faki said, whereas Interior CS Kipchumba Murkomen claimed not to be aware of camps, saying all IDPs were resettled, CS Wahome said the IDPs are yet to be resettled because the government didn’t have money for subdivision of the farms.

The two CSs had appeared before the Senate committee three weeks ago and two weeks ago, respectively, according to Faki.

He said the IDPs, who are victims of the 2007/08 post-election violence, have waited for too long to be resettled.

“Eighteen years is a long time that has seen several die as they wait. They need to be resettled so that they can live in habitable conditions,” Faki said, observing that they are living in deplorable conditions in structures made of polythene paper.

The committee made the visit following a 2023 petition by the national officials of the IDPs in the country who sought the Senate’s intervention so that they could be resettled.

Faki directed the administration of Nyahururu sub-county, led by DCC Bernard Odino, who was present, to work with leaders of the camp in Salama to list the names of the IDPs “so that masqueraders will not interfere with the resettlement process”.

The Senate committee chairman urged the Laikipia County government to make a plan for drilling a borehole in the area when the IDPs occupy the allocated plots. He said the end of this year should not find themselves in the camp.

“The farms bought by the government for the purpose of resettling them risk being grabbed if they continue being unoccupied,” he warned.