April 27, 2007 4:29 PM

A lot has been said about the Lenana land crisis which pits the school on one side and the local MP on another.

To fully understand the origin of the ‘dispute’ one must look at its origin.

On 29th April 2005, H.E The President officiated at a ceremony to inaugurate the National Tree Planting Week at the neighbouring Forestry centre.  Some local officials asked the former for some land to put up an educational centre. Our President asked the local leaders to sit down with the school administration to come to some form of agreement.

At no point did this happen! The school instead began receiving letters ORDERING them to hive off the land!

Numerous letters from officials from the Ministry have instead been written to the school administration and Board of Governors (BOG) accusing them of impeding a ‘presidential directive!’
The letters go as far as stating that the school needs to cede the aforementioned land because it has not been put to good use.

Lenana School’s title deed, clearly states that land may only be excised by the written consent of the Country’s Chief Executive Officer!  The school’s BOG are merely custodians who are charged with the day to day running of the school.  Would it not be a case of land grabbing if the BOG signed off the land?

The school administration, in conjunction with the Old Boys is in the process of finalizing an arrangement with a financier to develop a housing estate for our teachers and a golfing academy.

The school farm- which we are trying to expand currently caters to the school’s entire dairy requirements. This has gone a long way in enabling the school to subsidize the cost of education to our students. Something which is even more important considering the fact that the school has to finance its entire budget from internal resources.

We, The Old boy’s of the school, who are indeed stakeholders in the school decided to conduct investigations of our own.
It was at first claimed that the land to be excised was to be used in setting up a Primary school, then a secondary school and then a tertiary institution!  Why the shifting goalposts?

We have even received letters from people purporting to be freedom fighters accusing us of being against the local community! Is this not an attempt to intimidate us?

If it is a tertiary institution they wish to set up, why not expand Kinyanjui Technical School which is in dire need of rehabilitation. Would it not be easier to improve on an existing facility rather than build a new one?

The area MP has also claimed that the local i.e. Dagoretti residents have not benefited from housing the school.

Each year, Lenana selects its Form One intake under the guidance of the rules and regulations set by the Ministry of Education. Deserving students from all provinces in the republic get selected to further their schooling here in an open and transparent manner.

Lenana School is a national school, set up to cater to the educational advancement of the Kenyan boy child.  The school, on the other hand has not benefited from (CDF) Constituency Development Fund since its inception.

The Kenyan public, past and present, will harshly judge the present school administration, BOG and Old Boys if we play any role in this attempt to rob the country of one of its centers of academic excellence.

Brian Okutoyi
The Chairman
The Laibon Society/ Old Yorkists (Lenana Old Boys Society)
www.laibonsociety.com