This archive report was first published on 4 November 2019.
As the 2022 presidential election looms, Rift Valley leaders are scrambling to mitigate the potential backlash from the Mau issue. In 2013, Deputy President William Ruto led a coalition of Rift Valley politicians to oppose Raila Odinga's efforts to stop encroachment of the forest land.
Fast forward to the present, the squatters who were kicked out of the water tower have vowed to teach Rift Valley leaders a political lesson in the next general elections for using and dumping them by making fake promises regarding the Mau issue.
With the government seemingly unwilling to compensate or offer alternative land to the evictees, a group of Rift Valley leaders has raised funds to purchase a 24-acre parcel in Tendwet, Narok South Constituency. The land will be used to temporarily shelter Mau evictees who are in absolute distress and don't have alternative land, according to Kericho Senator Aaron Cheruiyot.
It is not clear how much money has been raised towards the initiative, but it appears the leaders have given up hope of the Government resettling evictees. The move to raise funds to settle evictees was arrived at after wide consultations and to avoid political backlash, an MP said.
News of the land being bought by the leaders came just a day after the State sealed the fate of the settlers ordered out of the forest by planting some 10 million tree seedlings on the land they previously occupied.
The political class in the region has been urging the Government to compensate or offer the evictees alternative land. Yesterday, Cheruiyot and MPs Kiptergech Mutai, Brighton Yegon, and Florence Bore called for the immediate arrest of all Government officials involved in the demarcation and allocation of land in the Mau Forest complex.
