Ancent Kyalo and Annastacia Ngao, who are shareholders of Wendano Matuu Company Limited, show what remains of the once vibrant coffee estate along the Donyo Sabuk-Tala road in Machakos County on December 9, 2025. A leadership dispute which has persisted for two decades has collapsed the once vibrant coffee estate.
Overgrown Lantana camara bushes swallow visitors at what used to be the headquarters of Wendano Matuu Company Limited along the Tala–Donyo Sabuk Road in Machakos County. What were once a coffee factory, stores and company offices lie in ruins, as an eerie silence engulfs the forested address that used to be the nerve centre of an enviable coffee behemoth.
“Wendano Matuu was a lifeline for Matungulu during its heyday. It is disheartening to see a company that had 500 permanent workers at its peak being brought down by some individuals, with the support of government officers,” Jackson Mutua, a shareholder, told Nation.
Ancent Kyalo and Annastacia Ngao, who are shareholders of Wendano Matuu Company Limited, show what remains of the once vibrant coffee estate along the Donyo Sabuk-Tala road in Machakos County on December 9, 2025.
The architect is part of a team of Wendano Matuu shareholders who accuse the police of looking the other way as vandals descended on what used to be the company headquarters and carted away valuables.
“We know who took the coffee milling machines and sold company land unprocedurally. No one has been arrested despite our incessant complaints to the police and the Independent Policing Oversight Authority. This amounts to economic sabotage,” he said.
A public limited company, Wendano Matuu has 1,782 shareholders, mainly drawn from Kangundo and Matungulu sub-counties in Machakos County.
A white businessman operated the company until 1974, when he sold it, along with its assets, to Kenyans. The company owned more than 4,300 acres of arable land when it changed hands, making it one of the largest coffee estates in the country.
The acreage under coffee has since reduced significantly after each shareholder received two acres to set up a homestead following a company decision.
Trouble started in 2006 when Stephen Muli led a faction of shareholders to overthrow Obed Mbithi, who was the chairman of the board of directors. They accused Mr Mbithi of financial impropriety.
Mr Muli’s team assumed leadership of the company in a move that split it down the middle and set the stage for a leadership vacuum that has lasted two decades. This is what plunged the company into disarray.
Mr Muli, who claims to be the custodian of Wendano Matuu’s instruments of power such as the company seal and the register of shareholders, has denied any wrongdoing.
Formula to end wrangles
He accuses the faction faulting his leadership of plotting to sell company’s assets and has devised what he says is a formula to end the wrangles that have defined Wendano Matuu Company Limited.
“We have subdivided the remaining parcel of land and allocated it to members. Each of the 1,782 members will take home a 50-by-100-foot plot. We are set to announce the move. This will end the Wendano Matuu leadership wrangles once and for all,” Mr Muli told the Nation.
Mr Muli’s move downplays a raft of protracted court battles that have unfolded as different factions fight over the remains of Wendano Matuu.
Attempts by a faction of officials to sell more than 400 acres of company land over the past 10 years “unprocedurally” have sparked accusations and counter-accusations that have ended up in court.
The cases revolve around the forgery of official company documents and obtaining money by false pretence.
In July this year, some shareholders celebrated when the High Court sitting in Machakos concluded a decade-long case over the company’s leadership wrangles.
The court directed the Registrar of Companies to intervene to get the coffee firm back on its feet.
“The dispute regarding the management and operations of Wendano Matuu cannot be resolved by declaring one faction over the other unless the evidence tilts the balance of justice. In this case, it is one word against the other. Taking into account that members and shareholders of Wendano Matuu have anxiously waited for their allocation of land according to share, the leadership wrangle can only be resolved through fresh elections,” the court said on July 14.
The court also directed the Registrar of Companies “to facilitate the installation of company directors who will facilitate the election of company bosses” within three months.
The following month, however, some shareholders moved to appoint a company secretary, to the chagrin of another faction that claimed it had been side-lined in the process.
“We are now surprised that… (a government official) in collusion with some purported members of the company and a nondescript person unknown to the members…claiming to have been appointed by the Attorney General, have appointed a company secretary…who has illegally gone ahead to publish a notice of the Annual General Meeting of the company in the newspaper, purporting to call a meeting on September 25, 2025,” a section of Wendano Matuu Company Limited shareholders said in a petition addressed to several actors.
Through Wesonga, Mutembei & Kigen Advocates, some shareholders have written to the Registrar of Companies seeking the revocation of the company secretary’s appointment. They allege he is part of a group scheming to take over the remaining company assets.
Charles Munyao at his coffee farm at Muthwani Village in Machakos County on June 18, 2022.
“One of the shareholders said to have signed the said letter is Raphael Makau Lonzi, who died on March 23, 2021, aged 70 years. On the other hand, Dominic Kioko and Monica Mwilu did not sign the purported letter. They have since lodged complaints with the DCI,” reads part of the petition by Wendano Matuu shareholders, a copy of which Nation has seen.
In response, the acting Registrar of Companies Damaris Lukwo has since cancelled the meeting called by the Company Secretary
“In compliance with the court order dated July 14, 2025, directing the Registrar of Companies to supervise and conduct elections, the Registrar shall communicate the decision it makes to comply with the order through the Business Registration Services website, and national newspapers,” Ms Lukwo said in a notice dated September 23, 2025, published in the Daily Nation.
A court has set April 2026 as the date to rule on an application by the Registrar of Companies to review the Machakos High Court directions.
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