Slumlords who built on riparian land are some of the worst people you can ever meet.
They build dungeons but charge tenants an arm and a leg on illegally acquired public land.
Like with all things that belong to WANJIKU, you can’t squat on public amenities forever.
Sooner or later a responsible government comes to reclaim that which belongs to the people, for the benefit of the people.
Nairobi’s bypasses, which are today some of Kenya’s widest roads, were once squeezed one lane roads.
It took the courage of one bold roads and public works minister to fight it out with roadway landgrabbers – some were still very powerful holdovers of a bygone impunity era – to begin to expand our roads.
If President Kibaki had not bowed to tribalism, and relapsed to his ethnic cocoon, he may very well have been the greatest president in pursuing grabbers of public properties and handing them back to the public.
President Ruto is taking an opportunity to correct a historical environmental problem. To change Kenya you must step on the toes of the powerful, and slumlords are among the hardest nuts to crack, being they use the very poor as a bogey.
Human suffering by a few for the benefit of the majority is the cornerstone of a developing country.
You are living in a great utilitarian era.
We may not agree with the manner of removal but you all know no way such an activity was going to happen without slumlords using the fate of the poor tenants to continue squatting on public riparian land, hazarding the rest of us in process yet charging criminal rents.
Sorry for the suffering of the tenants being removed from those condemned buildings. They must be treated with human care, but they must be removed to allow for the construction of a proper sewer system, and for the proper management of shared public river fronts, where new walkways and parks can be erected for the benefit of the many, if not, all.
Once again, I give my voice to the government’s efforts to correct mistakes that tribalism, corruption, bad governance, and impunity created.
Kenya, after all, to develop, must be a country of order. Bulldozers roar, or, impunity wins.
