JOMO KENYATTA SPEECH ON LAND ISSUES ON 1ST JUNE 1966 DIRECTED TO OGINGA ODINGA INDIRECTLY.
"Let me also issue a word of warning to those who might be tempted to carry the law in their own hands and try to take white settled land by force.
"Let me also issue a word of warning to those who might be tempted to carry the law in their own hands and try to take white settled land by force.
My govt will not tolerate such attempts by the malcontents among us who do not want to buy the land. I have already promised that this will not happen and those with such plans will be disappointed. Money will give land to everybody.
The market at its forces will distribute the land to us, including the poor without exception. Anything else smacks of a bloody communist conspiracy of violent land redistribution which my govt will not countenance."
The land redistribution policy was the greater cause of the fallout between jomo Kenyatta and jaramogi oginga odinga. While Odinga wanted the govt to freely give the poor the land, Kenyatta wanted the poor to buy the land. Their stands were based on capitalism and Communism ideas
When the British govt offered the newly independent Kenyan govt money that could be used by the poor to buy land, Kenyatta used the money to buy large tracts of land and gave some money to his political friends who also bought large tracts of land.
Jaramogi Oginga odinga who was offered over 300 acres by Kenyatta at thika for free rejected the offer citing the action as a failure by the govt not living up to its promise of giving the poor their land back. Jaramogi would resign in 1966 to form his own party KPU.
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