BY TALARUS CHESANG
Shock as an aggrieved family in Koroto, Baringo North Sub-county buries their deceased kin in a new Secondary school compound over unresolved land dispute.
The large family of Kameng’ich converged to bury and cement the grave of the late Paul Kipchabas, 65, who passed on after a short illness, adjacent to the school gate recently.
“Before he died, my father instructed us to bury him in his ancestral land, where he was born and his umbilical cord was buried” his son Francis Chebor said.
Chebor said until his death, his father Kipchabas had been making frantic efforts to reclaim his encroached ancestral land but in vain.
“He had approached the area chief and the elders who turned him down then he went ahead to petition the case in court” he said.
Chebor further accused the area professionals for ‘bulldozing’ the move to have the school constructed in their family land without consulting them.
He said what they did is final and they can’t allow anybody or even the government to exhume the body “This is our family land and we have nowhere to go” he said.
He was backed by his brother Andrew Chelimo and sister Veronica Ruto who said nobody bothered to listen when their father complained while he was still alive.
Zachayo Chemosong 50, brother to the deceased said they couldn’t violate the instructions of his elder brother to be buried exactly there.
“This is the exact place where he said when he dies he would like his soul to rest for eternity, nowhere else. So his final word had to be respected” Chemosong said.
He said while alive the deceased had even built his own house and fenced the disputed compound.
“In fact the land that the elders allocated to Koroto Secondary school is far away from here but only a few jealous individuals decided to use force to have it constructed inside the late old man’s land” Chemosong said.
He said they have been so good as a family in allocating several farms for public utilities like Sesoi, Akoroyan, Kampi ya Samaki Primary schools, “but we haven’t been consulted in this one” he said.
“Even God cannot allow grabbing or taking someone’s property by force” he said adding that as a family they are eagerly waiting for the court verdict.
However Baringo North Member of Parliament (MP) William Cheptumo has called upon the locals to sit down and resolve the land dispute amicably.
Cheptumo said the area professionals and leaders planned a fundraiser last year to put up a secondary school in Koroto hoping it will bring education closer to the people.
He condemned the act of burying a person in a public utility land saying if there is an issue “then may the elders, stakeholders and the families concerned sit down and resolve it once and for all” he said.
