Something of a revolution is taking place in Kenya, thanks to kids from Langata Primary School in Nairobi.
Kenya’s infamous Land-Grabbers finally met their match when they grabbed the children’s playground – and the angry primary school children demonstrated and tried to knock down the land-grabber’s fence.
The police as usual backed the land-grabbers and tear-gassed the primary school children!
Luckily for the kids the media had been alerted and the pictures went global.
President Uhuru heard about it and sent in the bulldozers to tear the fence down and give the kids back their playground.
The Secretary for lands released the names of the land-grabbers (three Asian brothers) to the media – and ordered seizure of more grabbed land around Nairobi.
Following the children’s heroic example, more people have started to report other land-grabbings knowing that now they will not simply be shot dead by paid thugs in collusion with the police and the powerfully connected.
It all reminds me of Soweto 1976 and the school kids uprising in South Africa that finally led to the end of Apartheid. I was in my final year at school then (Starehe, my school is 20 times bigger than Langata but we were too closely connected to Kenyatta Senior, Moi and Kibaki for anyone to dare grab our land! Infact some accused us of being land-grabbers ourselves! But our grabbing was for an SoS-type poor kids super-school).
Enter “Langata School Playground” in Google images to see more pictures of this Heroic Kids Revolution. I call them Mau Mau because the Mau Mau Rebellion began similarly in 1952 when some Kikuyu were evicted from their land.
Dida Jallow-Halake.
Ends
Bravo to the pupils (and staff) of this school… This is a clear testimony that nothing can stop a people (even primary school children) who are determined and ready to say,”enough is enough”..
President Uhuru needs to be commended for “stepping in” to avert a potential crisis, but if he is not going to be a President who rules by populist demands and executive orders, he needs to set up a commission to look at the land issue (to settle it) and the connection of “land grabbers” with law enforcement and/or top government officials and businessmen (corruption)..The release of names in the manner it is done, in a country rife with tribal and racial conflict, is not the best way to go about it because that could trigger confrontation and lawlessness…