Badi moves to reclaim grabbed schools land

Plans are at advanced stage to issue title deeds to all public primary and secondary schools in the capital, Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) said as it rushes to secure the property.

This follows complaints over increased cases of land grabbing by influential individuals.

NMS Director-General Major General Mohamed Badi said his administration will soon issue eviction notices to land grabbers.

Nairobi has 286 public schools, out of which 205 are primary institutions and the remaining 81 are secondary schools.

“Despite land being a thorny issue in the county, we will act swiftly to ensure all schools have genuine title deeds, but also provide security to these schools,” said Maj-Gen Badi.

The NMS boss said that despite warnings to the land grabbers, the practice has continued unabated.

He added that NMS will collaborate with the Nairobi County government, the county assembly as well as the National Lands Commission (NLC) to ensure all schools get title deeds for the land they occupy.

“We have already commenced deliberations with Nairobi County Assembly Speaker Benson Mutura to bring in the assembly to help implement the process of title issuance, a process that will also rope in NLC,” he said.

Roysambu MP Waihenya Ndirangu and Kibra MP Imran Okoth last week called on the Ministry of Education to intervene complaining that most land set aside for expansion of schools is in the hands of grabbers.

The lawmakers said that they were forced to make use of existing space in primary schools to build secondary schools.

“Land is a problem here as expansion of schools cannot take place with land set aside for the same having been grabbed. All the schools in Kibra are mostly being built within the existing primary schools due to this problem,” said Mr Okoth.

Budget Oversight committee chairperson Jackson Gichuguma echoed their concerns saying land grabbing was not a new phenomenon with a majority of public schools in Nairobi under threat.

Mr Gichuguma warned that if the government fails to act immediately, most schools will be left without playing grounds or room for expansion.

“It is sad that most of the head teachers hire goons when land grabbers come to our school. For how long will we continue to suffer? We want serious action taken,” said Mr Gichuguma.

At the same time, the Badi-led institution vowed to restore security in all public schools following concern by primary school head teachers over a directive issued last year by City Hall to withdraw private security guards from the institutions.

The teachers argued that the move exposed not only the schools to danger but also jeopardised the heads because of the responsibility they bear over the schools’ property.