Nakuru County Peace Accord

Kenya is populated by an estimated 42 ethnic communities primarily from the Bantu, Nilotic and Cushotic language families.[5] Ethnic consciousness materialized and hardened under British colonial rule (c. 1895 - 1963) which endowed ethnicity as a social phenomenon with importance in the societal hierarchy.[6] The British colonial influence left two legacies linked to ethnicity: land grievances and patronage politics.[6]

Under British colonial policies, “white settler” populations confiscated close to 20% of Kenya’s most productive farming land from local communities.[7] This policy displaced a large number of Kenyan natives, caused an influx of immigrant laborers not previously from the highlands and led to the creation of squatter settlements.[8]^:41

In the first part of the 20th century, calls for freedom and land redistribution gathered momentum leading in part to the Mau Mau Uprising (1952-1960), and eventually to various land redistribution schemes by the colonial administration ahead of independence in 1963. One of these schemes, known as the million acre scheme, sought to buy large swathes of land from settlers for the purposes of settling the squatters in the region. The scheme took on an ethnic character as it reflected the makeup of Kenya’s ethnic communities and especially the composition of the squatters, leading a large number of Kikuyu squatters to be settled in areas of the Rift Valley.[8]^:50

Following independence in 1963, elites under the Jomo Kenyatta regime used their positions to redistribute land and purchase land titles.[9] The environment benefited elites and those with access to land cooperatives, while disadvantaging those communities without recognized communal land rights and without access to the Kenyatta regime.[9]^:12–14 [10]^:7 In part of the Rift Valley region, Kikuyu communities settled in lands formerly inhabited by other ethnic groups, namely the Kalenjin and Maasai.[10]^:6–7

Ethnic patronage politics grew in post-colonial Kenya, as the state became the main vehicle for social and economic mobility in the race for resources and access to power. This led to a system that would entrench and enrich some ethnic groups while establishing barriers to access for others.[10]^:6 The structure of unequal access increased tensions amongst the various ethnicities; but politicized ethnic violence was largely tamed under de facto one-party rule.[10]^:7–8

However, since 1991 and the return to a multi-party democracy, old ethnic rivalries were politicized for political gain leading to ethnic violence in every election over the next two decades.[3]^:23 [9]^:16

On 30 December 2007, the Electoral Commission of Kenya announced Mwai Kibaki, of the Party of National Unity (PNU) as the winner of Kenya’s Presidential elections, amidst reports by international observers that tallying and compiling of votes had been manipulated.[11]

Initial violence seemed to be the result of a spontaneous response to the perceived election fraud, soon leading to the attacks in Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) stronghold areas (Nairobi slums, Eldoret, Kisumu, and Mombasa) against Kikuyus assumed to be PNU supporters. In the following weeks, the violence took on an ethnic dimension as politicians, businessmen, and others planned and organized the use of criminal gangs to carry out attacks.[3] Between 27 December 2007 and 29 February 2008, 1,113 deaths were recorded by the Commission of Inquiry into Post-Election Violence, 744 of which were reported from Rift Valley province.[3]

The Kenya National Dialogue and Reconciliation (KNDR) process refers to a series of agreements brokered by the African Union Panel of Eminent African Personalities between President Mwai Kibaki and opposition candidate Raila Odinga.[12] The Panel, led by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, began formal negotiations between the principals on 29 January 2008 which would go on to discuss four agenda items:

1. Immediate actions to stop violence and restore rights/liberties;
2. Immediate measures to address the humanitarian crisis and promote reconciliation;
3. How to overcome the political crisis; and
4. Long-term issues and solutions, such as land reform, inequality, national cohesion, accountability, and constitutional reform.[12]

On 28 February 2008, Kibaki and Odinga signed an agreement to install a transitional power-sharing government, ending the immediate political crisis and paving the way for legislation like the National Accord and Reconciliation Act (2008) and the National Cohesion and Integration Act (2008).[13] The latter act created the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) to undertake activities to eliminate discrimination and to further equality and peaceful coexistence of different ethnic and racial communities in Kenya.[14]