Nairobi, Sept. 4 -- I have been following a series of articles by Bitange Ndemo on what he describes as "dead capital", with interest. He defines dead capital as investment in non-productive assets such as shanties, rural shopping centres and ostentatious mansions on ancestral land. For avoidance of doubt, I have the highest regard for Prof Ndemo but, I would like to offer an alternate view.
Recently, I inherited a piece of land in my ancestral home in Kibichoi, Kiambu County. This land is part of a large swathe of which the clan purchased in the early 1900s from the Kabucho family after we were forcefully evicted by the colonial administration from our earlier settlement at Tiiri Mutune, further downstream. Details of this misfortune are ...