Dozens of families in Kiwanjani, Isiolo County are living in fear after a tycoon from Kiambu claimed ownership of a 10-acre land they have been occupying for over 40 years.
The tycoon is said to have filed a case in court in 2014 seeking to evict the 700 families who have been calling the land home for four decades.
In the case, the tycoon included only 10 out of the 74 plot owners as the respondents, a move that has aroused suspicion from the residents who feel they could be shortchanged during the ruling and now want to be enjoined as interested parties.
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The residents are now pointing an accusing finger at the Isiolo County's department of lands for failure to resolve land issues in the area.
Ms Asli Muhammad, an elderly woman who claims to have lived in the area since she was a young girl, said that most of the residents in the area are being considered easy targets since they do not have the resources to challenge the wealthy and influential tycoon in a court process.
Isiolo Women Representative Rehema Jaldesa, who visited the aggrieved parties on Saturday, said that corruption at the county department of lands had reached intolerable levels, with several poor people now being deprived of their land by wealthy people working with powerful cartels at the lands offices.
She said that it was the responsibility of the county government to protect its people from exploitation by issuing genuine landowners with allotment letters.
The legislator, however, promised to table a petition in Parliament on behalf of the 74 aggrieved parties to have the matter investigated by Parliament.
