Poliical historical feature By Leo Odera Omolo.

It was sometime on a date in June 1961, and while serving in the brief KANU/KADU coalition government as the Minister for Lands Settlement and Housing, the deminutive Kipsigis pioneer politician Taaita Araap toweett bravely told a huge crowd during a political rally in Kericho that those who wanted land for free should as well go to the Sahara Desert where there was plenty of land for free.

The rally was held at Sosiot trading centre in Belgut, Kericho district. The tough talking Toweett whose Kalenjin Political Alliance party was affiliated to KADU had just won a bruising election battle during the snap elections called by the then governor of Kenya Sir Patrick muir renson on a KADU ticket poling the largest number of votes, 58,796 a record which for years remained never to be to-date by any other Kenyan politician.

It is believed that only Ngengi Muigai had garnered the highest number of votes and came close to the equal one received by TOWETT IN 1961. Muigai polled 48,000n when he contested he Gatundu South constituency in 1972 Gatundu South constituency on a KANU ticket

Toweett contested the election against two challengers, one Mister Mister Arap Korir of KANU and A Former chief Inspector of Police Tamason Barmalel, a Nandi man who had migrated from his native Nandi and settled I Chepalungu This was a straight contest between KANU and KADU

Toweett first one a seat in the Colonial and white settlers dominated legislative Council in 1958 under what was then known as Lenoxboyd Plan which gave the African population six additional seats in the Legco bringing the number to 14. This was in addition to the first eight African members who were voted in in march 1957. Toweett had won the Southern electoral, which covered some parts of Kericho, trans-Mara and Kericho.

The famous pronouncement by Toweett came at the time when the densely populated members of the Kipsigis community were clamoring for additional land and pestering the colonial authorities to open up the white highland, which was exclusively forth white settlers at the time.

Other Legco members who were elected together with Toweett in 1958 included David Ngati Mumom [Ukambani], Justus Kondit Ole Tipis, {Central Rift], J.J. Nyagah {Embu}, Francis Joseph Khamisi] and Dr. Julius Gikonyo Kiano {Central]. {Mombasa]

Toweett’s answer to the anxious crowd sparked off a lot of murmuring among the ing for it can at a later stagas the time goes be kicked out of the same land plot by any powerful neighbor who can grab it forcefully but the one who had paid adequately for his land is the one could be sure of owning his property permmnently. The Sosiot rally almost broke up in chaos amid protest by the huge crowd..

However, it was later transpired that the majority of the kipsigis people well received Toweet message. They formed land buying companies. Other moved in families and bought land in many settlement schemes which were launched by the post-independent government headed by the founding President Jomo Kenyatta. The community also responded well to President Kenyatta’s famous call of “Back to the Land’.

Many members of this community, a sub-tribe of the larger Kalenjin ethnic group moved and purchased land previously owned by white settlers in Sotik, Rongai, Subukia, Trans-Nzoia, Uasin-Gishu, Nakuru, Molo, Elburgon, Londiani, Fort-Tennan, Koru and other places. Members of the Kipsigis can now be found in far fields like Laikipia, Nyahururu, Naromoru, Gilgil and Elmentaita and Cheranganyi where they have since prospered and became excessively wealthy following their acquisition of large scale farms in the “White Highland’.

During the same period of time Jaramogi Ogings Odinga, who was then repr5esenting the largest electoral constituency of Central Nyanza was telling his Luos that once independence comes, the land will be for free, and that luo herdsmen could go and graze their herds of cattle as far as Eldoret Molo, Kipkarren and other white settlers area without any problem.

Odinga instead of encouraging the Luos to spread their wing and acquire the kland in other farming regions and settlement scheme launched the infamous “Cham-Gi-Wadu”n a scientific socialistic slogan loosely translated that one must eat his your neighbor

And when the government finally opened new settlement schemes in Muhoroni, Koru, Songhor, Chemelil and other parts of Nyanza, the Luos were reluctant to buy land and settled in those schemes. The few who braved the taboo and defied traditional culture and bought land in the schemes, quickly abandoned their newly acquired farms and moved back to their ancestral land in the rural locations inside Luo-Nyanza. Those who persevered later abandoned the land and left their land laying fallow, though the few who Luos who took farming seriously and engaged in sugar cane farming have since prospered, although Odinga himself became a large scale farmer Songhor in Tinderet Nandi and in Miwani where the family now owns a large track of land and growing sugar cane. But the poverty index in the region still remains the highest.

In this context Toweett who died a few years ago in a motor vehicle accident did not fear losing his political popularity, but had told his people nothing but the truth the truth without fearing paying the political prices of losing their support.

Ends.