Across much of Africa, land has never been just land. It has always carried a deeper meaning that stretches far beyond soil and boundaries. Land has been identity. It shows of where you belong, telling a story. It is history etched into the ground. Entire communities have fought for it and died for it, because to be landless was not simply to be poor – it was to be unrooted and almost invisible.
And yet, my great great grandfather, in his infinite wisdom and generosity, invited two of his friends from miles away (in what must have been considered a far away land during a period of time when there were no vehicles or even roads to begin within) and gave them both huge parcels of land. To date, the descendants of these people live in that land, assimilated by the real owners and considered a part of the rest. Not a word has ever been mentioned about this side of history.
That is the story of many people I know, whose great grandparents dished out huge pieces of land freely and with no qualms. Actually, places like Manga settlement scheme in Nyamira are full of such stories, which is why there are constant legal disputes over land tenure, titling and succession.
To understand land matters in Africa, we have to look at history. History matters, because it explains part of what we are seeing today. Colonialism took land forcefully and redefined ownership. It introduced the idea that land could be claimed, documented, transferred and monopolized in ways that many African societies had not practiced before. Traditional communal land tenure was replaced by English law, which focused on land as a financial asset (title deeds) rather than a communal resource. Land was stolen to force local populations into providing cheap labor for European plantations, commercial farming and infrastructure projects like railways. When independence came, it did not wipe the slate clean. Instead, it handed over a system already shaped by inequality and now tilted toward accumulation, already primed for those closest to power to take more.
And boy did they take more.
In the decades since independence, land has quietly become one of the most powerful currencies in African politics. It is not always discussed openly (or maybe it is), but it sits beneath the surface of influence and control. Land can reward loyalty and secure alliances. It can silence dissent, while also transforming political office into generational wealth. In some cases, it becomes the clearest, most tangible proof that one has ascended and is no longer subject to the uncertainties that define ordinary life (evidence in how we are always being told to buy a plot of land, or how people who bought a car before buying land are considered brainless.)
Lets us talk about the psychology of accumulation. The quiet, persistent belief that more is always better, that security lies not in sufficiency but in excess. At what point does ownership stop being about need and start becoming something else entirely?
Because the truth is disarmingly simple. No matter how much land one owns, it cannot be lived in all at once. No one wakes up in ten houses at the same time. No one walks across a thousand acres in a single afternoon. The body has limits….Life has limits. And yet the appetite often behaves as though it does not. The thought itself is quite absurd, if we are being honest. A man can acquire thousands of acres and stretch his reach across counties. He could redraw boundaries in his favor, and still, at the end of the day, he will lie down in a single bed, in a single room, under a single roof. The mathematics of power does not quite make sense, and yet the pursuit never slows or even ask itself why.
Perhaps it is fear. A lingering memory that is inherited or experienced, of dispossession. A determination to never be without again. Or perhaps it is ego, the subtle but powerful desire to dominate, to have it all and leave behind something so vast that it cannot be ignored. Or perhaps it is simply the nature of power itself, which rarely teaches restraint and almost never rewards it.
Whatever the reason, the consequences are not abstract.
While vast tracts of land sit idle or underutilized, entire communities struggle to find space to live, to farm or even simply to exist with dignity. Informal settlements expand, not because people prefer them, but because alternatives are scarce. Land disputes flare into violent conflict, as generations grow up disconnected from the very ground their families once knew intimately, watching as ownership concentrates further and further out of reach.
There is also an illusion at the heart of all this, one that is rarely confronted. The illusion of permanence. That land, once acquired, somehow secures a place in history, anchors a legacy and even guarantees remembrance. But time, as I always say, has a way of dismantling such certainties. How many of you remember your great grandfather’s names, or even any of his 5 wives. Names fade and titles change hands. Boundaries are redrawn. All the while, what feels immovable in one generation becomes negotiable in the next.
In the end, land has never truly belonged to us.
Land has never truly belonged to us. Digest that, slowly.
We pass through it more than we possess it. Inevitably, regardless of who you are, you leave it behind. It remains, indifferent to our claims, patient in a way that human ambition can never be.
And perhaps that is the tragedy woven into this relentless pursuit. That in trying to own more and more of the earth, we lose sight of the small, finite space we actually occupy within it. It would be best for everyone involved to remember that when everything is stripped away and the noise of power fades, when the urgency of accumulation loses its grip, the truth remains a simple one – that no matter how vast the estate, or how many documents bear your name, no matter how far your reach extends across the land, you will still come to rest in one place.
And for all the land one can claim, that is the only space that will ever truly be yours.
How Much Land Is Enough? Power, Greed and the African State
Across much of Africa, land has never been just land. It has always carried a deeper meaning that stretches far beyond soil and boundaries. Land has been identity. It shows of where you belong, telling a story. It is history etched into the ground. Entire communities have fought for it and died for it, because to be landless was not simply to be poor – it was to be unrooted and almost invisible.
And yet, my great great grandfather, in his infinite wisdom and generosity, invited two of his friends from miles away (in what must have been considered a far away land during a period of time when there were no vehicles or even roads to begin within) and gave them both huge parcels of land. To date, the descendants of these people live in that land, assimilated by the real owners and considered a part of the rest. Not a word has ever been mentioned about this side of history.
That is the story of many people I know, whose great grandparents dished out huge pieces of land freely and with no qualms. Actually, places like Manga settlement scheme in Nyamira are full of such stories, which is why there are constant legal disputes over land tenure, titling and succession.
To understand land matters in Africa, we have to look at history. History matters, because it explains part of what we are seeing today. Colonialism took land forcefully and redefined ownership. It introduced the idea that land could be claimed, documented, transferred and monopolized in ways that many African societies had not practiced before. Traditional communal land tenure was replaced by English law, which focused on land as a financial asset (title deeds) rather than a communal resource. Land was stolen to force local populations into providing cheap labor for European plantations, commercial farming and infrastructure projects like railways. When independence came, it did not wipe the slate clean. Instead, it handed over a system already shaped by inequality and now tilted toward accumulation, already primed for those closest to power to take more.
And boy did they take more.
In the decades since independence, land has quietly become one of the most powerful currencies in African politics. It is not always discussed openly (or maybe it is), but it sits beneath the surface of influence and control. Land can reward loyalty and secure alliances. It can silence dissent, while also transforming political office into generational wealth. In some cases, it becomes the clearest, most tangible proof that one has ascended and is no longer subject to the uncertainties that define ordinary life (evidence in how we are always being told to buy a plot of land, or how people who bought a car before buying land are considered brainless.)
Lets us talk about the psychology of accumulation. The quiet, persistent belief that more is always better, that security lies not in sufficiency but in excess. At what point does ownership stop being about need and start becoming something else entirely?
Because the truth is disarmingly simple. No matter how much land one owns, it cannot be lived in all at once. No one wakes up in ten houses at the same time. No one walks across a thousand acres in a single afternoon. The body has limits….Life has limits. And yet the appetite often behaves as though it does not. The thought itself is quite absurd, if we are being honest. A man can acquire thousands of acres and stretch his reach across counties. He could redraw boundaries in his favor, and still, at the end of the day, he will lie down in a single bed, in a single room, under a single roof. The mathematics of power does not quite make sense, and yet the pursuit never slows or even ask itself why.
Perhaps it is fear. A lingering memory that is inherited or experienced, of dispossession. A determination to never be without again. Or perhaps it is ego, the subtle but powerful desire to dominate, to have it all and leave behind something so vast that it cannot be ignored. Or perhaps it is simply the nature of power itself, which rarely teaches restraint and almost never rewards it.
Whatever the reason, the consequences are not abstract.
While vast tracts of land sit idle or underutilized, entire communities struggle to find space to live, to farm or even simply to exist with dignity. Informal settlements expand, not because people prefer them, but because alternatives are scarce. Land disputes flare into violent conflict, as generations grow up disconnected from the very ground their families once knew intimately, watching as ownership concentrates further and further out of reach.
There is also an illusion at the heart of all this, one that is rarely confronted. The illusion of permanence. That land, once acquired, somehow secures a place in history, anchors a legacy and even guarantees remembrance. But time, as I always say, has a way of dismantling such certainties. How many of you remember your great grandfather’s names, or even any of his 5 wives. Names fade and titles change hands. Boundaries are redrawn. All the while, what feels immovable in one generation becomes negotiable in the next.
In the end, land has never truly belonged to us.
Land has never truly belonged to us. Digest that, slowly.
We pass through it more than we possess it. Inevitably, regardless of who you are, you leave it behind. It remains, indifferent to our claims, patient in a way that human ambition can never be.
And perhaps that is the tragedy woven into this relentless pursuit. That in trying to own more and more of the earth, we lose sight of the small, finite space we actually occupy within it. It would be best for everyone involved to remember that when everything is stripped away and the noise of power fades, when the urgency of accumulation loses its grip, the truth remains a simple one – that no matter how vast the estate, or how many documents bear your name, no matter how far your reach extends across the land, you will still come to rest in one place.
And for all the land one can claim, that is the only space that will ever truly be yours.
How Much Land Is Enough? Power, Greed and the African State
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