A decade after the Thange oil spill, residents are still paying the price—with their health and livelihoods. William Ngie and Emmanuel Nyamasyo have been diagnosed with acute kidney failure linked to an oil pipeline that leaked an unknown amount of oil in 2015.
Until a fortnight ago, when a section of Makueni residents won an environmental pollution case against Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) and the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) over a 2015 oil spill in the area, the lead petitioner, Muindi Kimeu, endured mockery from a section of his neighbours.
They said the Standard Eight dropout lacked what it takes to take on a State corporation.
He has since become a darling of the entire Thange neighbourhood.
Tens of Thange residents have been making a beeline to Mr Muindi’s homestead daily, either to confirm their details or to plead with him to add them to the list of the 3,075 residents who are set to receive Sh2.1 billion.
The residents will receive varying amounts of money depending on how the oil spill has affected their lives and livelihoods, including proof of loss of livestock, acreage of affected farmland, and proof of medical costs incurred.
“There is nothing I can do at this stage,” Mr Kimeu told a frail woman who claimed her health had deteriorated in recent years. It was not immediately clear why the Thange resident was not part of the 3,075 petitioners. He advised her to join a fresh bid to sue KPC over the oil spill spearheaded by Makueni Senator Daniel Maanzo.
Makueni Senator Daniel Maanzo.
“You have every reason to unite and rejoice because Thange is set to receive more than the money the Makueni County government uses to develop the entire county in a whole financial year,” Thange MCA Eric Katumo told two groups of residents bickering over who is entitled to the billions the Environment and Land Court in Makueni awarded victims of the Thange oil spill.
The July 11 court ruling was expected to have shed a glimmer of hope on the sleepy Thange village, which has been in the throes of oil poisoning for a decade. However, jostling over the anticipated KPC windfall has stolen the expected cheer. It has added to a cloud of hopelessness that has engulfed the region, where residents are troubled by strange diseases and the possibility of KPC and NEMA heading to the Court of Appeal to challenge the ruling.
“We expect to receive at least Sh900, 000 within the next 120 days. Unfortunately, we are not going to enjoy the money because we are sickly. Much of it will end up in hospitals,” said Mary Ndunge, a peasant farmer at Mwanza Village, who has been diagnosed with acute kidney failure.
At Moki Village, a community health promoter who is among dozens of Thange residents battling liver and kidney diseases expects to receive at least Sh1.5 million from the KPC windfall. Asked, he said he would have been happier if the court had granted a prayer by the petitioners for a specialised hospital in the area to handle health complications emanating from the oil spill. “The bulk of the money I expect to receive will go into medical expenses. I shall use the rest to restock the animals I have lost to the oil poisoning,” Paul Kalai told the Nation.
The Thange oil spill initially triggered a frenzy as residents scrambled to collect petroleum from the punctured pipeline and shallow wells.
Some even made a killing by selling the fuel to unsuspecting motorists. But the excitement soon turned to panic as contamination spread to local water sources, with authorities later warning of long-term health effects from exposure to petroleum products.
Over the years, uproar has intensified as residents complained of liver and kidney complications, which experts have tied to long-term exposure to petroleum products.
Mr Kimeu is among the smallholder farmers whose livelihoods have been turned upside down. He was part of a group of enterprising farmers who eked a living by selling assorted fruits and vegetables, which they grew along the River Thange throughout the year until the oil spill occurred.
At one point, they had come together into an association of farmers who depended on the river, which starts from a spring overlooking Mr Kimeu’s farmland, to grow assorted fruits and vegetables.
“Our farm produce went all the way to markets in Mombasa. The oil pollution has since destroyed all that enterprise. We are looking forward to the compensation awarded by the court to restore our livelihoods,” Mr Kimeu said of the oil spill, which has also left a trail of deaths.
At the height of the oil pollution crisis, KPC caused outrage when it offered to fund a traditional cleansing ceremony instead of initiating a proper environmental cleanup. This is what prompted NEMA to order KPC to initiate a cleanup of the polluted environment. At the initial stages of the environmental cleanup, KPC also provided foodstuffs and clean water to the affected residents.
KPC also contracted Panafcon Limited, an environmental impact assessment company, to assess the environmental and socio-economic impact of the oil spill. It returned a damning verdict; out of the 1,071 residents tested, 161 had contracted diseases caused by benzene and toluene.
The two elements are found in petroleum products. The 2016 report, which the Nation has seen, also estimated that KPC required at least Sh200 million to compensate the affected community.
KPC irked Mr Kimeu and his neighbours when its officials openly played down the impact of the oil spill. Some of the affected villagers received peanuts in compensation. Mr Kimeu, however, pocketed Sh393,000.
According to KPC Managing Director Joe Sang, the State corporation distributed Sh38 million to some 342 households in the affected region. A discussion on who should bell the cat ensued as the beneficiaries of the KPC compensation drive cried foul.
At the same time, KPC decommissioned the cleanup exercise on the affected section of the River Thange in consultation with NEMA in 2018.
This went against the wishes of the Thange community and the Makueni County government, who maintained that the environment was still polluted. “KPC set and marked its own examination, awarding itself very high marks,” Makueni Governor Mutula Kilonzo Junior said of the “shoddy” environmental restoration exercise when the Senate Energy Committee toured the epicentre of the Thange oil spill.
This “lacklustre” approach to the unfolding environmental disaster is what pushed Mr Kimeu to sue KPC and NEMA.
The petitioners opted for a constitutional petition in a bid to secure maximum awards as advised by their lawyers, Musembi Ndolo and Kamau Muthanwa.
“Although it was not easy to dismiss the Thange oil spill matter even if we approached it as an ordinary case, we risked losing the awards which we have secured if we had taken the ordinary route. The rights to water, a clean environment, dignity, and life, which the petitioners were pushing for, are clearly provided for in the Constitution,” Mr Muthanwa told the Nation.
To build a strong case, the petitioners procured the services of a doctor who tested the petitioners for oil poisoning. They also hired a veterinary doctor who tested an unknown number of livestock in the affected area for oil poisoning.
Justices Christine Ochieng, Theresa Murigi, and Annete Nyukuri concurred with Mr Kimeu that KPC and NEMA had infringed on the rights of the petitioners, which are protected by the Constitution in handling the oil spill.
“It is not in dispute that there was an oil spillage within the Thange River Basin on 12th May 2015, wherein a pipeline leak occurred at 256.9 kilometres from Mombasa in Thange, Kibwezi, Makueni County. It is also not disputed that the oil spillage contaminated the soil, air, river water, surface water, borehole water and negatively impacted animals, plants, and human health,” they said in the July 11 ruling, which the Nation has seen.
The court concluded that KPC and NEMA had abandoned the victims of the oil spill. This was his second victory against the State Corporation.
On February 22, 2023, Mr Kimeu won a case in which KPC had sought to bar him from representing the other 3,074 petitioners.
Over and above the Sh2.1 billion which the court awarded the 3,075 victims of the Thange oil spill, it directed KPC to pay Sh900 million to NEMA for restoring the River Thange riparian environment in the ruling celebrated by environmentalists as a loud statement in promoting environmental accountability.
The case tested Mr Kimeu's resilience in the face of mockery from some of his neighbours, intimidation from authorities, and discouragement by Mr Kilonzo Jnr and Mr Maanzo, who attempted to pull his legs along the way. Mr Kilonzo Jnr publicly said Mr Kimeu was ill-advised to sue KPC and NEMA before the full extent of the impact of the oil spill was established.
“There is no need to sue for livelihoods when the environment is tattered,” he said recently, as Mr Maanzo openly criticised the lawyers working with Mr Kimeu.
“The hardest part of the petition was seeing my neighbours succumb to liver and kidney diseases, which multiple studies had linked to the oil spill, as the case dragged on in court,” Mr Kimeu said.
Although the court recognised and compensated 15 residents whom it established had died due to complications linked to oil poisoning by the time the petition was filed in 2019, Mr Kimeu carries around a list of more than 100 residents who have since died under similar circumstances.
Agnes Kandi winnows maize in Thange village, Makueni County, on March 20, 2025. Her husband, Edward Muia, is among dozens of residents who have succumbed to liver and kidney diseases linked to the oil spill in the area in 2015.
Edward Muia, a teacher who was among residents who tested positive for exposure to hydrocarbons after KPC tested a section of the community in 2016, is among those who have succumbed to liver and kidney diseases.
“My husband lost a battle against kidney and liver diseases in September last year. He had tested positive for oil poisoning when KPC took specimens from a section of Thange residents to South Africa for testing. In his last days, he told us to put the money to good use in case KPC compensated him. Unfortunately, there is no amount of compensation that can bring him back,” the widow, Agnes Kandi, told the Nation.
Authorities are on high alert ahead of the release of the KPC windfall. “Obviously, we anticipate domestic conflicts, especially in cases where a petitioner has died. However, we have put measures in place to address that problem if it arises. We have an active multi-agency task force in place on the Thange oil spill,” Kambu Deputy County Commissioner Teresia Mburu said.
