Replacing name ‘premature’

THE intention of the Kurumbukari Landowners Association of Ramu Nickel and Cobalt mine to revoke and replace ‘Kurumbukari’ with a foreign name is totally premature and absurd.
Those registered clans disputing customary land ownership right and majority of the indigenous people of Bundi would decry and oppose this move.
Due consideration should be given by the executives of KBK before their intention is undertaken and made known.
The name Kurumbukari is the traditional name of the place given by our forefathers and has remained in time immemorial.
It signifies a special tree in the original Gende dialect of the Bundi people.
Kurumbukari is the traditional name of the mine site and has been recorded in the history books of early missionaries and patrol officers in the pre and post-colonial eras.
To change the name means to change the whole traditional and recorded history of Kurumbukari.
Changing the name would be irrelevant to both the people of Ramu and Bundi.
These tribes have been neighbours and known for their barter trade for centuries while sharing the only border – Ramu River.
The name of a particular place in essence, has intrinsic traditional and cultural values that firmly connect its inhabitants.
To replace Kurumbukari with a foreign name means to totally disconnect the original inhabitants to the spirit of their ancestors, local deities or masalais (spirits) and the destruction of their belief system.
This brings to mind that the initial mistake to call the mine as Ramu Mine is very contradictorily unjustifiable as it is not located in Ramu area but entirely on Bundi land.
It should have been called Bundi or Kurumbukari Nickel and Cobalt mine.
The crux of the matter registered landowner groups, MCC, MRA, CEPA and other interested parties should clearly understand is the complete failure of the Special Lands Title Commission (SLTC) in its commissioning to identify and declare genuine landowners of Kurumbukari mine and thus, there is no legal customary land title holder as yet.
As such, I object the change of name and/or incorporating of Kurumbukari landowners association as a legal entity unless legitimate landowner groups are identified and subsequent formal proceedings are followed.

Elvii Toovey