Keep off Mau issue, evictees tell Ruto Allies

Evictees say the only time the MPs remember them is when they are facing censure issues

BY PETER MUTAI

Families evicted from the Mau forest have accused Rift Valley MPs allied to suspended Higher Education Minister William Ruto of using their plight to champion their selfish political interests.

The more than 3, 000 families who have been living in squalid conditions in makeshift shelters by the roadsides in Kuresoi constituency for a year, accused the MPs of politicising their plight whenever the Eldoret North MP was in trouble.

"They are doing this not because they sympathise with us but because they want the Kalenjin to sympathise with them," said Philip Ngeny, their co-ordinating chairman.

Ngeny, who was with elders from the six camps, told the MPs to keep off the Mau Forest and allow Prime Minister Raila Odinga to resettle them as he promised.


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"Why were they attacking Raila when he announced the Government was looking for land to resettle us?" he posed."Those leaders only talk of the Mau forest evictions whenever one of them is in trouble, yet none of them has bothered to find out how we are living in the camps."

He added: "They only visited us late last year immediately after we were evicted."

Ezekiel Kirui and Samuel Sang, committee chairmen for Kapkembu and Kipkongor camps, accompanied Ngeny at the press conference in Kericho.
Elders Benjamin Misik, David Chepkwony, and David Kirui were also present.


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Last week, Ruto and some Rift Valley MPs hit out at the PM over the Mau saga, and issued a three-month ultimatum to the Government to resettle displaced families.

Yesterday, the evictees demanded to be told the whereabouts of the 4,000 acres of land MPs from the region claimed had been bought for them. They also want to know where Sh6million raised during a harambee at Panafric Hotel in Nairobi to assist them was spent.

"We were told by our leaders that the Government had bought 4,000
acres of land for our settlement and up to date we are still waiting to be relocated. Were they playing politics with our plight?" the chairman asked.

He appealed to the Government to supply them with new tents saying the ones they were given were leaking. They also asked for relief food and medicine.