United Democratic Alliance (UDA) Member of Parliament Joseph Makilap Kipkoros has narrated how a 'Chinese investor' tricked residents in his Baringo North Constituency and grabbed an entire location, leaving them landless.
Speaking on the floor of the National Assembly during the morning session on Wednesday, Makilap revealed that the investor, in collusion with some officials from the county government of Baringo, hatched a well-planned land grab from the residents.
''I have a case where some cartel from the community working together with a 'Chinese investor' took away land in Kapturo sublocation so that when the government wanted to do land adjudication in that particular area, he went to court and said the whole sublocation was his land,'' Makilap narrated.
According to the lawmaker, when leaders from the region demanded to know what had happened, they realised that their land had been grabbed.
The MP further added that the matter is currently active in court in a bid to help the residents get back their land as they have been rendered landless.
''When people realised what had happened, it was found out that the investor had colluded with the county government to get the title deeds of the land,'' Makilap added.
"Everybody in that sublocation was rendered landless. This is a serious matter; Madam Speaker, I am talking about a living matter, and the case is in court.''
The act has since forced the residents to be squatters in their own land, with a thin lining of hope that the courts would grant them justice.
How It Unfolded
According to the lawmaker, it took the betrayal from the educated sons and cartels from the region who colluded with the foreigners to grab land from the residents.
The foreigner is reported to have gone to the villages of the sublocation where there are diatomite mineral deposits and lied to the residents to sign documents they were not aware of their contents.
He lied to them that by appending their signatures to the documents, they would be shareholders in the mining process.
''How did that Chinese acquire that land? He came telling people that if you want to get shares of diatomite, sign here. People signed imagining they were going to get something from the same, yet they were signing to give away their land,'' Makilap revealed.
