Frontier areas are often defined by their in-between positionality in relation to the state, where services and control become fragmented. This situation leads state authority to be replaced by opportunistic actions, creating omnipresent hinterlands where people are interchangeably excluded and included from the state through the ever-changing conditionalities of their livelihoods.
Being a frontier area, land issues in Laikipia has often developed out of that in-between space of state legislations where the lack of state presence can be taken advantage of. In the Independence year in the 1960s and 1970s, this was also the case when land-buying companies were formed by the new political elite who was looking to buy votes for land through the acquisition and subdivision of former colonial ranches. This was possible since the Government resettlement schemes, that were meant to Africanise the large-scale landholding landscapes, were inadequate to satisfy the land hunger from the African population. But as soon as a land-buying company was formed, the piece of land acquired, the shareholders’ payments collected and their votes of gratitude had manifested into political support in general elections, then the political patron had lost interest in finalizing the land transactions. This meant that surveying, subdividing and titling into individual parcels for each shareholding client often took 30 years or more. Instead the politicians often oversold the land to more shareholders than could be sustained in order to maximise their vote profits. This gave the politician more support, but it also made it impossible for the shareholders to get all the land they had paid for even if they had already settled. This in turn locked the situation and made it impossible for the land to be surveyed and subdivided for titling. The land-buying companies and directors often conveniently positioned their offices far away from the land itself, making it difficult for the shareholders to act out their frustrations and demand action. Without an individual title deed the shareholders could not get bank loans to invest in their land. They had moved out of state space and instead come under the jurisdiction of institutions that did not fully represent them or their interests. Still today, after more than 30 years, many smallholders continue to live with this insecurity. As such, the land-buying companies are based on elite structures and represent the materialisation of institutional pluralism, imposing authority as twilight institutions within a space of jurisdiction that is non-reachable for the state.
To complicate the situation further, many shareholders had bought land for investment purposes only and was not interested to settle. Today, this has created vast areas of seemingly vacant land that has attracted pastoralists. Without sufficient grass, the pastoralists are forced to graze illegally on the settled shareholders’ fields. This leads to violent confrontations, in which the police are reluctant to get involved because it is strictly speaking not yet the shareholders' private property.
Navigating the non-presence of state institutions and the in-between legal status of the land, where their claims to the land is continuously challenged, the settled shareholders start to develop yet other twilight institutions, for instance when a shareholder passes away, moves or comes into financial problems and the land-rights-to-be needs to be transferred to someone else. This further stimulates legal pluralism and complicates any options for solving the situations.
The future of these contested lands in Laikipia is highly uncertain. Today, everyone navigate opportunistically simply because they have to. For the pastoralists, it is not an option to refrain from settling on land belonging to others, and graze livestock illegally since their cattle may die if they do not do so. On land at the margins, where relatively few farmers are settled, the seemingly vacant land is abundant, which makes the conflicts worthwhile for the pastoralists. For the settled shareholders, it is not an option to wait for the title deed before settling, since waiting may leave them without an income for decades. To politicians, it is necessary to maneuver social economies, for instance by buying land to secure votes. Without such political opportunism the politician would not last long in Kenyan politics. And for the directors of a land-buying company, extending the process of providing individual title deeds for the shareholders provides opportunities to maintain an income from ongoing selling of shares and renting of unsettled land. So, as long as state authorities do not get involved and company offices are securely located out of reach from frustrated shareholders, the directors can continue their practice of opportunistic inaction.