The Supreme Court has upheld an earlier ruling by the Court of Appeal granting orders to dispossess former PS Thuita Mwangi of 200 acres in Laikipia.
Former Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary Thuita Mwangi has lost a decade-old court battle over the ownership of a Sh200 million piece of land in Laikipia County.
The 14-year dispute ended up at the Supreme Court, which has now upheld an earlier ruling by the Court of Appeal granting orders to dispossess Mr Mwangi of the prime property that sits along the Rumuruti-Nyahururu highway.
In a ruling delivered on April 15, 2025, the apex court granted herbal practitioner Jack Githae legal ownership of the land he bought in 1986 but was evicted from by the former PS in 2011.
The ruling by a five-judge bench faulted Mr Mwangi for failing to specify his reasons for filing the matter at the highest court in the land, which primarily deals with interpretation of the Constitution.
“We have come to the inescapable conclusion that the appellant has failed to specify the grounds upon which he is challenging the Appellate Court’s interpretation and/or application of the Constitution. In our view, the matter turned purely on factual issues now being camouflaged as constitutional violations, and for which this Court lacks jurisdiction to determine,” ruled the bench, which comprised Deputy Chief Justice Philomena Mwilu and four other judges.
According to court proceedings, Mr Mwangi purchased the entire 264 acres of land through a sale agreement dated September 22, 2011, where he paid Sh9.5 million to the administrator of a deceased’s estate, Mr James Mugo.
Initially, the land was owned by Mr Mugo’s father, Mzee Kinga wa Mwendia, who passed on in 1999 before he could complete the transfer process of some 200 acres of his land to Mr Githae.
Following the death of their father, Mr Mugo obtained the grant of administration for the deceased’s estate, and together with his seven siblings, sold the land to the former PS—including the 200 acres that had already been bought by Mr Githae.
Consequently, Mr Githae, who had converted the property into a satellite branch of his School of Alternative Medicine and Technology (SAMTECH), was forcibly evicted. His building and the medicinal plants he was growing on the land were destroyed.
He then moved to the Environment and Land Court (ELC) in Nyeri, which ruled in his favour. But the former PS challenged the ruling at the Court of Appeal, which upheld the judgment. Still unsatisfied, he escalated the matter to the Supreme Court.
The ELC, in its ruling, held that the former PS and Mr Mugo were aware that some 200 acres had already been sold by the deceased in 1986, but still went ahead to enter into a sale agreement on private property.
Besides losing the property—whose value has reportedly increased tenfold in the last 15 years according to land valuers—Mr Mwangi has also been ordered to compensate Mr Githae for the cost of the suit and the loss of property following his brutal eviction.
After acquiring the property located at Gatundia, about five kilometres from Rumuruti Town, the former PS—who also unsuccessfully contested for the Laikipia gubernatorial seat in 2017—constructed a permanent family house and installed an electric fence around the land.
