Since 2013, the three families have been at war over the shareholding of Kamuta Company Ltd.
From afar, Nature’s Camp Naivasha sells the aura of serenity and peace away from the noisy and polluted city centres across Kenya.
But within that calm is a war for the 232.5-acre land hosting Nature’s Camp and other establishments, pitting the families of two former spies in the Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel Moi eras against that of businessman Francis Iganjo Mutahi.
The land also hosts other businesses, which have leased space. All three patriarchs died years ago, and their families have been at war since 2013 over the shareholding of Kamuta Company Ltd – the firm incorporated on December 4, 1976 and which owns two adjacent land parcels which measure 232.5 acres.
On one side of the battle sit the families of James Kanyotu and Stephen Mwangi Muriithi. And on the other is the family of their former associate, Francis Iganjo Mutahi.
The late James Kanyotu.
The High Court in 2023 ruled in favour of the Kanyotus and the Muriithis, but a Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) probe now indicates that the war for the Sh7 billion land is far from over.
Mr Kanyotu was appointed head of the Special Branch, Kenya’s civilian intelligence agency at the time, in 1965 when Jomo Kenyatta was President.
Mr Kanyotu retained his position when Daniel Arap Moi became President, and retired in 1991, having built an investment portfolio largely cutting across the real estate and hospitality sectors.
Mr Kanyotu died in 2008, leaving behind wealth and court battles that his family inherited.
Mr Muriithi served as Mr Kanyotu’s deputy director until 1982, when Kenya Air Force private Hezekiah Ochuka led a group of military officers in a failed coup against President Moi.
He was detained without trial and would later sue President Moi seeking Sh2 billion. The Supreme Court in 2023 dismissed Mr Muriithi’s case, long after both the plaintiff and the defendant were dead. Mr Muriithi died in 2021, barely a year after former President Moi.
Their families argue that Mr Kanyotu and Mr Muriithi were the only shareholders when Kamuta Company Ltd was formed in 1976, a stand that they maintained when winning a case against the family of businessman Francis Iganjo Mutahi in December, 2023.
Mr Mutahi’s family had claimed that the patriarch was also a shareholder and was only mysteriously edged out of the firm 13 years after his death in 2000.
Investigators and the public prosecutors have, in the course of that battle, turned their attention to Zacharia Kamau Ngugi and Gitonga Mwangi Muriithi.
On June 13, 2013 Mr Ngugi was listed as the new company secretary of Kamuta Company Ltd by the families of Mr Kanyotu and Mr Muriithi. On the same day, Mr Gitonga was brought in as a director with no shares.
On November 6, 2025, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations started an investigation into Mr Ngugi for alleged forgery and filing of documents intended to indicate shareholding changes at Kamuta Company Ltd.
The investigation was started following a complaint by Ruth Muthoni Iganjo, Mr Mutahi’s widow, who claimed that Mr Ngugi lodged the documents with the Business Registration Service in 2013, allegedly triggering an irregular change of shareholders.
On December 11, 2025, the DCI wrote to the Immigration and Citizen Services department of the Interior ministry, seeking to place a stop order against Mr Gitonga. The stop order would block him from leaving the country.
Ownership of Kamuta Company Ltd
The Immigration and Citizen Services department wrote back four days later, revealing that Mr Gitonga had left Kenya a month earlier for London, and was yet to return.
The DCI then placed an alert on Mr Gitonga, meaning he is to be arrested at any border point he may seek to enter the country through.
On January 15, 2026, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) approved four counts related to the alleged offence, and Mr Ngugi was charged.
Mr Ngugi pleaded not guilty, and was released on Sh100,000 cash bail.
The intended charges are alleged forging of memorandum and articles of association for Kamuta Company Ltd, alleged making of a false document, alleged uttering of a false document and alleged filing of misleading documents.
Two former company registrars at the Attorney-General’s office have recorded statements with the DCI alleging that the original file with records of Kamuta Company Ltd was missing when investigators requested information on the firm’s shareholding as at 2013.
The two former registrars held that there was a temporary file with Kamuta Company Ltd’s records, which had two sets of CR12s – a document that shows the ownership and directorship of a company.
The first CR12 allegedly indicated that when the firm was incorporated in 1976, it had three shareholders – Mr Kanyotu, Mr Muriithi and Mr Mutahi. Each of the three, the two former registrars added in their statements, held a share.
The second set allegedly had only Mr Kanyotu and Mr Muriithi.
The statements by the two former company registrars added that on December 31, 2013, Mr Ngugi presented a memorandum and articles of association indicating that Kamuta Company Ltd only had two shareholders at the time of its incorporation – Mr Kanyotu and Mr Muriithi.
Further, Mr Ngugi also filed annual returns, which indicated that Mr Kanyotu had ceased being a director upon death in 2008.
The documents, the two former company registrars added, brought in Mr Gitonga as a director with no shares, while appointing Mr Ngugi as the company secretary of Kamuta Company Ltd.
“The office (BRS) believed that the documents were genuine, true and proper representation of the shareholding of Kamuta Limited having being filed by a practising CPS and in the belief that whoever who take to furnish copies of documents ought to be sincere and file a true position that reflects the true status of the company and a temporary file was opened upon this documents, subsequently two CR 12s were issued,” the two registrars said in correspondence with the DCI.
Mr Mutahi’s family had told the DCI that when the patriarch died in 2000, they conducted a search on the ownership of Kamuta Company Ltd, which showed that he was one of the shareholders in the 1976 registration documents.
Mr Mutahi’s kin had given the High Court the same account in 2014 when suing the Kanyotu and Muriithi families alongside Kamuta Company Ltd to stake a claim to the Naivasha land.
The Kanyotus and Muriithis argued that their patriarchs were the only shareholders, and that Mr Mutahi was an employee who was only allowed to settle on the property in his capacity as its manager.
The court, in 2023, dismissed the suit by Mr Mutahi’s kin and ruled that the land is owned by the Kanyotus and Muriithis. The court further ordered Mr Mutahi’s family to pay Kamuta Company Ltd Sh1 million for trespass.
The court had heard that the Mutahis have irregularly leased some portions of the land to other parties, without the consent or authority of the Kanyotus and the Muriithis.
DCI officers now await Mr Gitonga’s return to Kenya for, possibly, the final phase of the Sh7 billion war for a slice of Naivasha.
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