§ 1. Mr. Wilkesasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies in what circumstances a clan of the Kikuyu people were removed from their land in Tigoni, Kenya, in 1938; whether he is aware that they are not prepared to accept alternative land at Nyamweru or the compensation offered; and whether it is the intention of the Kenya Government to either return the land of which they were dispossessed or offer alternative acceptable land with compensation.
Mr. Creech JonesThe Kikuyu referred to were among 700 occupying a small isolated area of unalienated Crown Land, known as Tigoni, whose rights were extinguished under the Native Lands Trust Ordinance of 1938, in accordance with the recommendations of the Carter Land Commission of 1933 that native land units should be consolidated. The majority of the Tigoni right-holders accepted both the land at Nyamweru, which was offered in exchange, and the financial compensation for improvements they had effected at Tigoni, but some refused either to go to Nyamweru, on the grounds that the land was under a curse, or to accept the financial compensation offered, which they regarded as inadequate.
Both these complaints have been investigated by the Kenya Government. It is now clearly in the interests of these people that they should rejoin their fellow Africans at Nyamweru in the Kikuyu land unit where land is still available for them. The Government's offer of compensation, which is based on an assessment made in 1939, was acceptable to the majority of the right-holders and is still available for the remainder if they will accept it.