Find a way of taming Kenyans' insatiable greed for land

Greed, if you ask me, is not knowing when to stop wanting more because you already have enough. Greed can also be defined as an extreme desire to acquire and possess more than one needs, especially with respect to material wealth. This incessant desire advances into an overwhelming urge of wanting to have something so badly that it quickly ceases to be a desire anymore and becomes a destructive ingredient that will have one do just about anything to possess whatever they want. As to whether we have good greed and bad greed, all fall within the bracket of wanting more than you need, which is already wrong to begin with. What is so complex with being content with what you have?

How would life be, especially in our country, if we all decided to be content with just what is necessary. Life to mankind outside of greed would be much better. Greed is what comes to our minds when we think about land and the mysteries surrounding it. I firmly call it a mystery as it is highly emotive and has become that one thing that will so easily break strong family ties while causing cracks between siblings, parents and the list is endless.

First things first, let us understand how land came to be. Before anything else land is an inheritance from God. Before we converted the land resource into a factor of production, property, stake and even investment, it was a hereditament handed down from heaven into the hands of men.

Land disputes are on the rise every single dawn. If it’s not grabbing a plot, its changing the demarcation because it will be more exciting to have an extra piece of earth that doesn’t rightfully belong to you. Families are okay to make merry, love and support one another, share and cultivate strong ties until the elephant in the room shows up. The land conversation is where they all draw the line.

We have on countless occasions woken up to disturbing bulletins of how family land quarrels ended in bloodshed, arson ambushes and the list goes on. What’s more distressing is that they will still go on until we put an end to our huge appetite for more than we need and we also resolve the land puzzle. Why are we giving land so much power?

Land greed did not start with our generation as we could also analyse biblical narrative of King Ahab’s greed that brings him a relentless desire for Naboth’s vineyard. A whole king who had it all (power and abundance of possessions) was all of a sudden suffering sleepless nights because of a small piece of land that did not belong to him. This greed consumed the king, provoking his wife Jezebel to orchestrate a devious plan of falsely accusing and executing Naboth. The scheme worked. However this greed led to catastrophic consequences for the king and his family later.

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There needs to be a multi-sectoral approach, from all relevant bodies in our society, to try and see how we can get answers to the troubling land dilemma. How to make people understand that life is more valuable than land. How can we be content with what belongs to us rightfully, why does land seem to bring out the worst in us? What is it with land? Land is good and everybody wants a piece of it, which is okay, but can we also ensure the piece that we have belongs to us and nobody dies in the process of wanting to acquire one more piece greedily.

The question is whether we are ready to restrain our insatiable greed for land because, if we do not, we are going to have more devastating outcomes.

Ms Muthoni is an administrative assistant