Lamu's troubles have always been about land.

The strategy is simple: blame the last guy. James Orengo was Mwai Kibaki's Minister for Lands in the period between 2011 and 2012 when five hundred thousand acres of public land was irregularly allocated in Lamu. From the disparate bits of information available, this was public land available for allocation for settlement; only 30% of that land was left to locals. President Kenyatta need not have mentioned Mr Orengo's name; all he had to do was impute that if anyone was to blame, it is the former Minister. It is a script that is faithfully being executed by his minions.

If the Land Question were that easy to resolve, that is by blaming someone else for the problems bedeviling you, then we would have sorted out the mess at Ardhi House a generation ago. While President Kenyatta inherited a poisoned chalice, his advisors seem to desire that he swallow its contents wholly without providing an antidote. What will be the effect of fingering Mr Orengo for the mess in Lamu without admitting that the nettled bush is now in his hands and that it is his government that must settle the matter before more lives are lost? None that is good. Shifting blame, if it is part of a strategy for starting with a clean sheet and addressing the problem once and for all, might be the way to go. But if all the President and his minions intend to do is shift blame and "investigate," then Lamu should be prepared for more troubles.

When speaking to the Mpeketoni Attacks, President Kenyatta blamed "local political networks" and absolved al Shabaab, which had claimed responsibility. The President may be right; after all it costs al Shabaab nothing to create the impression that it is running rampant in Kenya except to gain it infamy and notoriety. The Land Question is the bread and butter of all politicians in Kenya; each of their constituents who has the vote wants a piece of land to call his own. Land is the only reliable source of credit and it is the foundation of all our ethnic identities. Even the pastoralists need territory to identify as their own on which they and their herds can roam freely. So until the Land Question is settled, Kenyan politics will be prone to violent shocks such as happened in 1992, 1997 and 2007. If the President is right and local politics is to blame for Mpeketoni, then the solution is to settle the Land Question in Lamu and the "local political networks" will have to find another ground for sowing disaffection among the communities in Lamu.

President Kenyatta has given the Cabinet Secretary for Land political cover to sort out the mess in Ardhi House. Twice he has stood publicly by her side as she has taken on what are described as "corruption cartels" in the Lands Ministry. He has done so in the face of resistance from the National Land Commission, the Law Society and civil society. Mrs Ngilu, the Cabinet Secretary, claims to be reversing what Mr Orengo was responsible for doing. If she succeeds in cleaning up and cleaning out the Land Registry, streamlining the land administration process, and ensuring that land titles' provenances are clear, she will contribute mightily to settling one of the most intractable problems that independent Kenya has ever faced. But if she and, by extension, President Kenyatta do what successive governments have done since 1963, it is almost certain that the "local political networks" will sow so much death and destruction that President Kenyatta's beloved Lamu South Sudan Ethiopia Transport corridor projects will be dead in the water.

President Kenyatta and his Cabinet Secretary, sadly, are playing with a marked deck against cheats and liars. Part of the reason why they may not prevail is that they have become too enamoured of the traditional secrecy and paranoia that pervades the National Executive. Mr Kenyatta has started well by exposing the key beneficiaries of the irregular land allocations in Lamu. He must bolster this by making public the relevant passages of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Report dealing with the Land Question and whatever findings are made by the Directorate of Criminal Examinations must be published for all to read. Secrecy has covered up more problems than it has solved. It is time Mr Kenyatta's government stood naked in the agora for the people to see that it is not hiding any skeletons underneath its skirts.