We must talk about land.

Land is forever going to be a campaign issue as long as Kenyans, both young and old, rich or poor, keep getting the short end of the stick when it comes to access. In 1920, when Harry Thuku launched Kenya's agitation against white settlers and, eventually, against the Colonial administration in Kenya, the emotive subject then, as today, was land. The Mau Mau were not known as the Land and Freedom Army for nothing: it is land that defined the Mau Mau uprising. When the Kenyatta government betrayed the spirit of the Mau Mau uprising, it set the stage for the agitation around land that would flare up so violently in 1992, 1997 and, to a large extent, 2007. The 2002 elections were largely peaceful because we all knew that the old KANU way of doing things was over and done with; Daniel Toroitich arap Moi's twenty-four years were coming to an end, and in Mwai Kibaki, and Raila Odinga, Kenyans had hope that some of the most thorniest questions of the ay would finally be resolved. Among them was the Land Question.

The tit-for-tat accusations between Raila Odinga/CORD and Uhuru Kenyatta/Jubilee over who is the greater land-grabber paper over the Land Question in egregious ways. Not one of them has addressed the reasons why, even after the NARC administration was elected, that the Land Question remains unresolved today. They refuse to debate the reasons why Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Odinga have failed to agree on the appointment of the National Land Commission, months after the names of Commissioners were approved by the National Assembly. They both claim that land is the quintessential subject of modern Kenyan politics but all they do is to poison the air with their constant accusations and counter-accusations over who owns what and how it was acquired.

There isn't a prominent political family in Kenya that has not engaged in a questionable land deal. Mr Kenyatta may not have personally set out to acquire tracts o land, but he cannot run away from the fact that while his father, Kenya's first Prime Minister and first President was in power, he somehow ended up a land-owner to rival the Delameres of colonial Kenya. Nor can Mr Odinga paper over the fact that the way his family acquired and disposed of the Molasses Plant, and its surrounding land, left a bitter taste in the mouth. The debate, however, cannot revolve around the two families' exploitation of the infirmities in the Kenyan land administration infrastructure; it must revolve around ways of improving it and ensuring that the law is enforced fairly with an eye to making land productive.

It is the principal factor in production and production is the principal factor in poverty-alleviation. For Kenya to lift itself out of poverty and for its peoples to lead lives of dignity, the Land Question must be settled. And quickly. The apparent gag order issued by the Inspector General of Police is wrong-headed and quite possibly unconstitutional. If Mr Kimaiyo and the National Cohesion and Integration Commission wish to see a peaceful general election, they must start grappling with the fact that Kenyans, and their political leaders, must address even thorny subjects as the Land Question. What they must do is guard against Kenyans fomenting ethnic hatred because of the same. But if Kenyans are going to disagree over the matter, all they can do is to ensure that the disagreement doesn't turn to violence. We are never going to agree on which is the best course to follow in resolving the Land Question; too much blood has been split for that to happen. What we can agree is that if an honest broker is to be found, it will be in the National Land Commission. This is the political compromise we struck after the violence of 2007 and 2008 and it is in this brand new institution that we must place our hopes in resolving the Land Question. If we no longer have faith in any institution in Kenya, political or otherwise, then we might as well prepare for the worst in March, whether Mr Kimaiyo or the NCIC want it or not.