Elections Related Evictions in Urban Slums: the Case of Mukuru Kwa Njenga Nairobi, 1991-2013

Abstract

This study examined the settlement and origin ofMukuru Kwa Njenga slums in Nairobi and the causes and long-term impact of election related evictions in the slum.The statement of the research problem was identified from the gaps which scholars in the field of election violence and urbanization have failed to address.In this regard,the topic of the study came into the fore.The core objectives of the study were to examine the settlement of Mukuru kwa Njenga slums, the root cause of election related evictions in the settlement and the correlation between elections related violence and resultant evictions.This was achieved by examining variations across ethinicities and villages within Mukuru Kwa Njenga.The study provides evidence that politics have strong effects on forced evictions particularly during election periods which formed the basis of the research problem statement concerning the perennial evictions from the slums every election cycle. The research incorporated the use of both primary and secondary data in examining the key goals of the study.Purposive snowballing technique was also employed in the study so as to capture more data to address the objectives of the study.The research borrowed from Johan Galtung’s ‘structural conflict theory’ which postulates that structural violence is characterized politically as repression and economically by exploitation both of which are administered from the top downwards thus those below have their needs deprived disproportionately. The study found out that slum dwellers in Mukuru Kwa Njenga live in harzadous and unhealthy conditions and in portions of land which they can’t claim ownership yet they have occupied them for over 30 decades.Yet a few political elite and some influencial businessmen who used unscrupulous means to claim ownership of the same land which is home to thousands of slum dwellers threaten them with threats to evictions everytime.The slum inhibitants thus live in constant fear of evictions by the presumed owners of the land and the political elite who exploit the ethnic alignments which are deeply entrenched in the slums to cause tensions resulting to election violence and evictions in the slums.The study also estamblished that the political elite always play this ethnic card every election year for their own political selfish ends.The key main research objectives of the study were met.