A public inquest has been opened into historical land injustices where Garissa Senator Yusuf Haji was accused of acquiring squatters' land when he served as the Coast provincial commissioner in the 1990s.
According to The Standard squatters who appeared before the National Lands Commission inquest committee, stated that the Senator, who is DPP Noordin Haji's father, acquired and sold the land in question to a charitable organisation.
The squatters told the inquest committee that they wanted the land to be repossessed and returned to them.
NLC started a public inquiry into historical land injustices at the Coast investigating all land disputes since 1895, when the Kenyan Coast was taken over from its Omani rulers, through the post-independence era.
Senator Haji and the charitable organisation he allegedly sold the land to were notified of impending adverse testimony against them and invited to the proceedings, but neither appeared nor sent a representative.
During the proceedings, the family of one Kazungu Moli claimed the senator acquired the land in the 1990s and later sold it to the Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan Charitable and Humanitarian Foundation.
In a presentation before NLC’s committee on historical land injustices, a member of the family, Harry Chogo, claimed Senator Haji sold the land (Majaoni settlement scheme) for Ksh4.8 million.
Chogo told the committee residents were living on the land adding Sheikh Zayed leased the land to African University Trust of Kenya (AUTK), which constructed the Mombasa International University (MIU), to a tune of Ksh500 million.
Making his representation to the NLC committee chaired by Commissioner Samuel Tororei at the Kenya School of Government, Chogo claimed the family currently has about 250 members living on the land.
“We are facing eviction threats from AUTK, which has several times told us it would deploy bulldozers to bring down our houses,” Chogo stated.
Dr Tororei declared that AUTK and Senator Haji would be given an opportunity to respond to the allegations by the claimants.
