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Kenya’s post-independence history is marked by numerous instances of high-ranking politicians and politically connected individuals exploiting state power to illegally acquire public land – what land sector practitioners and the public call land grabbing. In the decades before the 2010 Constitution, public land allocation was heavily centralized in the executive. Presidents routinely rewarded political allies by excising portions of public land and allocating them to loyalists, turning a public resource into a tool of political patronage. This practice was particularly widespread during the administrations of Kenya’s first and second presidents, Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel arap Moi.
The legal framework governing land at the time enabled this system. Colonial-era laws that remained in force after independence vested sweeping authority in the president to allocate government land. The institutional framework reinforced this concentration of power. The Commissioner of Lands, a senior official within the Ministry of Lands, also had the authority to allocate public land. But because the Commissioner of Lands served at the pleasure of the president, the office often functioned less as an independent administrative safeguard and more as an extension of executive will.
Kenya’s Government Lands Act created the legal conditions that the country’s first two presidents exploited to abuse their authority for personal and political gain. The law established the office of the Commissioner of Lands, an official empowered to act on behalf of the president in allocating what were then known as government lands (now referred to as public lands). Government lands included lands held by government institutions, as well as all land not classified as private land (adjudicated and titled under other laws) or Trust Land (undeclared land potentially under customary ownership). Under the 2010 Constitution, these government lands are now termed as public lands, encompassing property held by public schools and education institutions, ministries, state agencies, hospitals, research facilities, national forests, national parks, wildlife reserves, as well as roads and road reserves. Trust Lands are now defined as unregistered community lands, and are not the focus of this article.
In the years following independence, government land also included “unalienated land” (territory that had not yet been leased or formally allocated to private or institutional users). By law, the president had the power to allocate such land, provided the decision served the public interest. In principle, allocations by the president or the Commissioner of Lands were supposed to benefit the Kenyan public, for instance, by enabling the construction of public housing or other social infrastructure. However, the law placed limits on this authority. Neither the president nor the Commissioner of Lands had the legal mandate to allocate government land that had already been reserved for public purposes such as nature conservation, forests, playgrounds, or road bypasses. Yet in practice, these safeguards were frequently ignored, enabling the widespread illegal and irregular conversion of government land or public land into private property for politically connected elites.
By the final years of President Daniel Arap Moi’s twenty-four-year tenure, land grabbing had reached unprecedented levels, making it a central issue on the campaign platform of the incoming administration. Land corruption and land grabbing ranked alongside bribery in government services and grand corruption scandals such as Goldenberg as the greater ills Kenyans sought to eliminate.
Documenting and detailing the land-grabbing problem
Kenya’s third president, Mwai Kibaki, came to power on a reform platform as many Kenyans sought to break from decades of corruption they believed had stalled the country’s progress. Within the first year of taking office, in July 2003, Kibaki established a Commission of Inquiry to investigate the illegal and irregular allocation of public land. Chaired by Paul Ndiritu Ndung’u, the inquiry produced what became widely known as the Ndung’u Land Report.
The report exposed widespread land grabbing affecting state corporations such as Kenya Railways, Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, Kenya Power and Lighting Company, and Kenya Airports Authority. It also documented irregular allocations involving lands held by government ministries (Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Roads, and more), universities such as the University of Nairobi and Kenyatta University, as well as forests and protected areas, including Karura Forest, Ngong Forest, the Mau Forest Complex, and lands around Lake Naivasha.
After exposing how public land had been illegally and irregularly allocated to politically connected individuals, the Ndung’u commission, in its final report that was published in 2004, proposed four key recommendations. These were: creating a comprehensive inventory of public land; establishing a computerized land records system; adopting a new national land policy; and setting up a tribunal to review and potentially revoke illegally acquired land titles. Two decades later, progress has been limited. Kenya has only partially implemented two of these recommendations. The first is the introduction of ArdhiSasa, a digital land registry platform that currently only covers parcels in Nairobi (less than 1 per cent of the country’s total area). The second is the adoption of the National Land Policy in 2009, which also remains incomplete as the policy was meant to be reviewed every ten years, yet since 2019, Kenya has not produced an updated version.
Following the release of the Ndung’u Report, Kenya embarked on a broader land reform process. Stakeholders across the land sector began reassessing what had worked since independence and what needed to change. This process led to the drafting of the National Land Policy between 2005 and 2009.
The policy’s diagnosis of Kenya’s land challenges, and its proposed solutions, directly informed Chapter Five of the Constitution of Kenya 2010 (titled “Land and Environment”). In addition, the Constitution’s Fifth Schedule required Parliament to enact a set of new land laws within specific timelines to overhaul the country’s land administration and governance framework.
The 2010 Constitution and institutional independence
As public land had long been vulnerable to political capture under the old institutional framework, Kenya’s post-2010 land reforms dismantled key structures that concentrated power in the executive. The office of the Commissioner of Lands was abolished, and the president’s authority to allocate government land or public land was removed. In its place, the land reforms process created the National Land Commission (NLC) through the National Land Commission Act of 2012. The commission was mandated to manage and administer public land on behalf of both the national and county governments. Crucially, the NLC was established as an independent constitutional body, an institutional safeguard designed to protect Kenya’s public land from the political interference that had enabled decades of land grabbing.
The National Land Commission is supported by a secretariat and a chief executive officer, but its most important decisions are made by the nine commissioners (eight members and a chairperson) who serve six-year terms. The Act that established the NLC also requires that commissioners be selected from professionals who have a degree qualification and at least fifteen years of experience in public administration, land management and administration, management of natural resources, land adjudication and settlement, land law, land survey, spatial planning or land economics, or social sciences. Commissioners are nominated by the president but must be approved by Parliament before taking office. Parliament can reject nominees it believes lack independence, although so far this has never happened.
What distinguishes the NLC from the old Commissioner of Lands system is its institutional independence. Unlike the Commissioner of Lands, who served at the president’s pleasure, NLC commissioners cannot be removed by the executive or the president. In the past, presidents such as Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel arap Moi could appoint loyal allies as Commissioner of Lands and dismiss them if they failed to follow political directives. The NLC was designed to break that cycle. Once appointed, NLC commissioners can take positions that challenge the president or the executive without fear of direct dismissal.
This structure also gives the NLC a degree of independence from the Ministry of Lands, whose leader, the cabinet secretary, is a direct presidential appointee who can be dismissed at any time. Ministers often carry out the president’s directives with little room to challenge them, knowing that doing so could abruptly end their tenure. While some individuals have managed to maintain their integrity and resist undue pressure, such cases remain the exception rather than the rule.
By contrast, the president’s very limited ability to influence the careers of officials heading independent institutions is precisely what safeguards their autonomy. This separation of power is the same principle that allows the judiciary to act independently, and even annul a presidential election result declaring an incumbent the winner, as demonstrated by the decision of the Supreme Court of Kenya following the 2017 Kenyan presidential election.
In July 2012, a few months before the end of the Grand Coalition government, President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga nominated nine individuals to serve as the first commissioners of the National Land Commission, with Mohammed Swazuri proposed as its inaugural chairperson. Swazuri was an Associate Professor of Land Economics, having earned his PhD in the field from the University of Nairobi, and had previously served as a commissioner in the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission. The other nominees were similarly selected for their professional expertise and, notably, none had previously held political office.
Institutional independence in practice
As recent events, including the June 2024 Finance Bill protests, have shown, the principles included in our laws and policies only matter if and when the laws and policies are actively enforced. The brief history of the National Land Commission also illustrates this clearly. Its value as an independent constitutional body depends on commissioners exercising that independence. The nine individuals who serve as commissioners must be willing to challenge the executive and act decisively whenever threats to public land arise.
A striking example of a constitutional commission asserting its independence is the 2015 case of Lang’ata Primary School. Students, parents, civil society groups, and children’s rights activists protested when private developers, on behalf of the neighbouring Weston Hotel, attempted to fence off part of the school’s playground to expand their facilities. The case drew attention not only because it involved public school land but also because at the time, the hotel was rumoured to be owned by the then Deputy President, William Ruto, who later confirmed this in a television interview. As often happens in such disputes, the protests escalated, teargas was used on pupils, and at least five schoolchildren were injured, highlighting both the stakes of public land battles and the importance of independent oversight. (Media reports later revealed that Weston Hotel sits on land belonging to the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority – yet another instance of irregular public land acquisition.)
Arguably the finest hour in the history of the NLC came when then chairperson, Mohammed Swazuri and his fellow commissioners publicly sided with students to protest the attempted grabbing of Lang’ata Primary School’s land. On that day, the NLC fulfilled its core mandate: protecting public land from illegal appropriation. That they acted despite facing a powerful political figure (the then Deputy President) set a precedent for future commissioners, demonstrating how far the commission can go when it prioritizes public interest over political influence. In the end, Lang’ata Primary School’s land was saved, and to this day, there have been no further attempts to seize it.
Swazuri’s tenure as the first chairperson of the National Land Commission was far from flawless; he was later charged in court by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission with conspiracy to commit corruption, specifically fraud that caused the loss of public funds belonging to Kenya Railways Corporation. This first set of commissioners also never created an inventory of all public lands, a task many land sector professionals consider the minimum they should have accomplished. Yet, on that single day in January 2015, Swazuri and the NLC demonstrated true independence, setting a powerful example for how future commissioners could uphold public interest over political pressure.
One step forward, two steps backwards
The first set of NLC commissioners served from 2013 until their tenure lapsed in 2019. The then president, Uhuru Kenyatta, subsequently nominated the second set of commissioners, including Gershom Otachi (Chair), Gertrude Nguku (Vice-Chair), and members Esther Murugi, James Tuitoek, Reginald Okumu, Kazungu Kambi, Tiyah Galgalo, Hubbie Al-Haji, and Alister Mutugi.
The first red flag among the new nominees was the proposed chairperson, Gershom Otachi, who had served as a defence lawyer for suspects implicated in Kenya’s darkest moment of the twenty-first century – the 2007/08 Post-Election Violence (PEV). Former President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto were among six individuals indicted by the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) for their roles in planning, orchestrating, or financing the violence. The other four included Henry Kosgey, Francis Muthaura, Mohammed Hussein Ali, and Joshua Arap Sang. Otachi was former police commissioner Mohamed Hussein Ali’s lawyer. Uhuru nominating one of their defence lawyers as NLC chair signalled a troubling return to the era when presidents rewarded political allies with key positions. The inclusion of former MPs Kazungu Kambi, Esther Murugi, and Tiyah Galgalo, all active politicians until 2017, further raised concerns, as their backgrounds did not fully align with the technical qualifications required under the National Land Commission Act. Their political allegiance was the main factor that got them the job.
Several non-governmental bodies challenged the nominations. The Institution of Surveyors of Kenya (ISK) criticized the president for exploiting a legal loophole to appoint individuals who lacked the professional qualifications required to serve on the NLC.
However, as Kenyans have repeatedly (and painfully) learned, Parliament has often failed to act independently of the executive. Legislators frequently prioritize party positions over the interests of their constituents. In this context, Parliament approved the second set of National Land Commission commissioners, who completed their term with little to show.
Perhaps the most notable moment of the tenure of the second NLC commissioners came in 2023, during President William Ruto’s first year in office, when he declared that the NLC’s mandate to value land for compensation should revert to the lands ministry. Civil society organizations, including the Kenya Land Alliance and the Land Development and Governance Institute, condemned the statement. Yet none of the commissioners publicly defended their constitutional mandate.
If commissioners do not speak out when a president threatens to return their powers to the lands ministry, it suggests that other well-known tactics used to cripple independent institutions, such as budget cuts or delayed funding, may also be at play, albeit out of public view.
This marked a stark contrast with the first NLC commissioners, led by Mohammed Swazuri, who had previously stood their ground when the then lands minister Charity Ngilu publicly challenged the commission’s role. The silence of the Gershom Otachi-led team weakened the broader advocacy efforts of land sector stakeholders and represented a troubling low point for institutional independence in Kenya’s land governance.
In February 2026, President William Ruto presented seven nominees for the NLC. The nominees included Abdillahi Saggaf (Chair), Susan Khakasa Oyatsi (Vice-Chair), Daniel Murithi Muriungi, Kigen Vincent Cheruiyot, Dr Julie Ouma Oseko, and former MPs Mohamed Abdi Haji Mohamed and Mary Yiane Seneta.
Very little is known about Abdillahi Saggaf, the proposed NLC chair, raising immediate concerns about his qualifications for the role. Media reports mention little beyond his origins in Kwale County. One might be forgiven for speculating that the Kenyan media is, wittingly or not, enabling the erosion of trust in public institutions by failing to investigate why the president nominated these individuals to serve as commissioners. Unfortunately, Kenya’s thirteenth Parliament offers little hope of challenging President Ruto’s decisions. At the time of writing, Parliament was approving the new NLC commissioners.
The inclusion of former politicians (former MPs Mohamed Abdi Haji and Mary Seneta), while overlooking hundreds of career land professionals, raises serious concerns, more so because politicians often prioritize loyalty to power over adherence to professional principles and public interest. Ruto’s presidency has already been marked by controversial land decisions, including the transfer of public land to private developers for the affordable housing programme, the “adoption” of over 200 acres of Kakamega Forest by First Lady Rachel Ruto, and, most recently the clearing of three acres of Karura Forest for temporary National Youth Service (NYS) accommodation.
Given Ruto’s history, including his connection to the Lang’ata Primary School land dispute and past appointments of loyalists, it is unlikely that the third NLC team will assert its independence to protect public land. Once again, Kenyans face a familiar scenario: a legal and institutional framework designed to safeguard their interests is undermined by those unwilling to act in the spirit of the law.
(The NLC Chairperson, Dr Abdilahi Sagaaf Alawi, and the commissioners nominated by Ruto assumed office on Monday, 23 March 2026, following a swearing-in ceremony at the Judiciary offices in Nairobi.)
The need for qualified professionals to lead the National Land Commission (NLC) is especially urgent as state agencies move to lease public land as a revenue-generation strategy. In April 2026, the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) announced plans to lease 1,909 acres of its land for farming and other ventures, part of a wider government initiative targeting up to 500,000 acres of “idle” land to attract KSh65 billion in agricultural investment. Other institutions identified include Egerton University and the Galana Kulalu, Bura, and Tana Delta irrigation schemes.
Although this initiative is intended to boost food security while leveraging private sector efficiency, it carries a real risk of land grabbing. Experience shows that leased public land can be illegally converted into private ownership over time, making strong oversight essential to prevent permanent loss of public land. This is why the NLC must be led by commissioners with deep expertise in land administration and governance. Such professionals are better equipped to uphold legal frameworks, adhere to principles and standards for responsible land governance, enforce accountability, and safeguard public land for the benefit of all Kenyans. Equally important is the NLC’s autonomy, which enables it to resist political and commercial pressure and act decisively against unlawful land acquisition.
The hand of necessity compels
The picture may seem grim, and it is easy to feel a sense of defeat. Yet the 2010 Constitution of Kenya remains our strongest defence against impunity. First, land sector stakeholders, citizens and the media fraternity must scrutinize the current NLC nominees. This includes reviewing their professional qualifications to ensure they meet the constitutional threshold. The Institution of Surveyors of Kenya (ISK) once again questioned the qualifications of the individuals Ruto nominated to lead the NLC, noting the nominees lack core academic qualifications or professional expertise in fields such as land surveying, land economics, spatial planning, and land law; areas explicitly listed as requirements for NLC commissioners under the National Land Commission Act. Kenyans can build a case on ISK’s argument that the NLC commissioners were not selected from qualified land governance professionals. The Law Society of Kenya (LSK) and civil society groups, including Kenya Land Alliance (KLA), Land Development and Governance Institute (LDGI), and Transparency International – Kenya (TI Kenya), should file court petitions to challenge the validity of these commissioners and have the president nominate new commissioners who meet the requirements spelt out in the National Land Commission Act of 2012.
The second part of this struggle requires Kenyans to do the heavy lifting. As the June 2024 protests showed, real power lies with the people. Citizens must remain vigilant in protecting public spaces, even when government institutions fail. This means exposing instances of land grabbing, mismanagement, or irregular allocation across all platforms, and supporting (financially or otherwise) those who take bold action to address these issues in court or through protest. On 18 March 2026, the Nation reported that the Kenyan government had since abandoned the plan to construct temporary National Youth Service (NYS) accommodation within Karura Forest. Strong advocacy by stakeholders in Kenya’s land sector, including the public, to reverse the appointment of unqualified NLC commissioners is likely to lead to a similar outcome.
Looking beyond 2027, the hope is for a new administration that can restore public institutions to their constitutional mandate. As Kenyans head to the ballot next year, they should demand that whoever succeeds William Ruto empowers the National Land Commission to fully carry out its mandate (or rather, leaves the institution to operate independently without political influence). A new administration should prioritize the creation of a comprehensive inventory of all public land and pursue cases of land grabbing with the aim of revoking illegally or irregularly allocated titles and restoring such land to the public domain. Perhaps the process should first focus on revoking the most recent illegal and irregular land acquisitions to address the immediate damage and then work backwards to tackle earlier cases. The new administration that takes over in 2027 (or, at worst, 2032) should prioritize the fourth recommendation of the Ndung’u Commission: setting up a tribunal to review and potentially revoke illegally acquired land titles.
Until then, Kenyans must continue to uphold the Constitution of Kenya 2010, defend the public interest, and insist that offices such as NLC commissioners function as intended: independently protecting public land and resisting executive attempts to prioritize private gain over the common good.
