Pupils, teachers up in arms over alleged grabbing of school land.

Pupils and teachers of Kiboko Primary School, accompanied by the office of Thika MP Eng. Patrick Wainaina show some of the beacons that had been erected in their school compound by unknown people on Friday. 

Pupils and teachers of Kiboko Primary School in Thika West Sub-County staged a peaceful demonstration to protest alleged grabbing of part of the school's land.

They demonstrated inside the school compound waving twigs before uprooting beacons supposedly planted by the said grabbers last Friday.

According to the school head teacher, Joseph Ndichu Muiruri, he was called by one of his staff to alert him of an unknown people who had contracted some youth to erect beacons to mark what seemed to be already subdivided plots of land. He immediately rushed to the compound and ordered them to vacate the compound.

“The first thing I did was to notify our education office and the area MP Eng. Patrick Wainaina who immediately came to the school. They have already cleared the bushes probably to pave way for their mission,” said Mr. Muiruri.

The head teacher added that this was not the first attempt as some people had previously attempted to hive off the land from the school but the parents stood their ground, scaring away the then ‘grabbers’.

“This land has been earmarked for expansion and the management hopes that in future, we can put up a secondary school or a polytechnic,” said the head teacher.

(Related story: Two sitting Thika MCAs accused of plot to grab children’s playground.)

He appealed for intervention from the National Land Commission, Lands and Education cabinet secretaries so as to rescue the school which currently doesn’t have a title deed.

Thika KNUT Executive Secretary Joe Mungai Ngige termed the appetite for public land in Thika as very unfortunate while asking the government to ensure all public learning institutions were fenced in order to hive them off from potential grabbers. He warned investors in the region to be extra cautious when buying land as they were prone to be conned into buying non-existent or public land.

“It is just the other day that they attempted to grab a children’s playground in Section 9. Today it is Kiboko Primary School and I still understand that Umoja Primary is also sailing in the same boat. 

This appetite for public utilities must stop forthwith. We are now back to the menace of land grabbing that dogged this town in the 90s,” said the KNUT Secretary.

He appealed to the Ministries of Education, Lands and Treasury to expedite the process of school acquiring title deeds as this was only way to arrest the problem.

Area MP through his Personal Assistant (PA) John Mwangi Njuguna vowed to protect all public land within his jurisdiction, terming the greed for public land as a menace that needed to be fought from every quarters.

He promised to commence a programme to fence all the public schools in the constituency, beginning with those that were most exposed to land grabbers and drug peddlers.

“We will start a programme to fence all our public schools, starting with Kiboko Primary School, so as to protect them from grabbers and drug peddlers who take advantage of the current situation,” said Mwangi.