Inside Nairobi's scary world of land-grab cartels
Demolition at Syokimau near Jomo Kenyatta International Airport on November 13 2011. Photo/ANTHONY OMUYA
The two men caught on video when they tried to lay claim to property in the affluent Karen suburb at the beginning of this year have a string of similar land grab cases across Nairobi.
Peter Kamau Munene and Jackson Mwangi Wambui drove into the residence of long-time Karen residents Richard and Clare Hooper towards the end January, with the former claiming that he was the owner of the land, and the latter that he was the deputy police chief for the area. The couple had lived in the house for 25 years and were alarmed when Munene claimed he was the owner while Mwangi threatened them with arrest for alleged trespass.
Mr Hooper alerted neighbours and the neighbourhood security watch, who rushed to the scene and parked their cars at the gate to prevent the intruders from driving out. They also started filming the confrontation, with the video soon going viral on social media.
The police were also called and the genuine officer in charge of Karen Police Station led a team to the scene and arrested the duo. The following day, Mwangi was arraigned in court and charged with impersonating a police officer, while Munene was released but instructed to report regularly to the police station as investigations continued.
Legal battle
The attempted land grab happened just three months after Munene lost a long legal battle over a piece of land he had tried to grab from a Nairobi family in Thome Estate. Judge Lucy Mbugua of the Environment and Land Court High Court found that Munene had presented a fraudulent Title Deed and transfer documents in an attempt to dispossess the family of Gabriel Gichuru Kuria and his wife, Veronica Wanjiru, both deceased.
Munene is involved in another 2019 case, in which he is being sued by John Kamau Njoroge and Stephen Muya Njoroge, administrators of the estate of Njoroge Kamau.
In the Gichuru family case, it is ironically Munene himself who moved to court in June 2019 seeking eviction of Winfred Wambui Gichuru and her siblings, claiming that the heirs of the late couple had trespassed on land they had owned since 1916.
He wanted the court to grant him unimpeded and exclusive right of occupation and possession of the land, as well as a permanent injunction restraining Wambui and her siblings from entering, trespassing on interfering with his enjoyment of the property.
In her defence and counterclaim, Wambui demonstrated to the court how their parents had properly acquired the land, which was originally part of the Thome Farmers’ Company. They wanted the land restored to them and a title deed fraudulently issued to Munene cancelled. They also wanted a permanent injunction against Munene from similarly entering, trespassing and interfering with the property or disposing or dealing with it in any way.
Munene had claimed in court that he had purchased the property from one Paul Ndegwa for Sh24 million, but did not offer any proof of such transaction, while the court found that the defendants gave a detailed history of how their parents acquired the land as members and shareholders of Thome Farmers’ Company, as well as receipts and letters showing payments for various transaction, including purchase, sub-division and survey fees.
The judge agreed with the defendants and ordered that the title deed held by Munene be cancelled and full rights of occupation and ownership be restored to them.
Munene was also ordered to pay the family Sh5,000,000 for destruction of property during his attempt at illegal occupation. The case and others still pending opened up a Pandora’s Box around the Thome Farmers’ Company, where shareholders and members who acquired land experienced long delays in issuance of title deeds.
Missing files
Those following up found that files were missing at both the company offices and the Ministry of Lands, while crooked individuals with connections at the Nairobi Land Registry were able to present fake claims and be issued with ownership documents.
On the strength of the titles deeds issued irregularly, they then used hired goons to invade the targeted property and ejected the occupants, sometimes helped by police officers. The Kasarani Police Station, Directorate of Criminal Investigations, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission and the Ministry of Lands have been inundated with complaints around rampant land grabs, but justice has been slow in coming.
One of the documents Munene presented in his claim was a letter issued by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations signed by a Mr James Magambo confirming that he was the bona fide owner of the disputed land. The judge dismissed the letter as worthless. Aggrieved families who have been victims of the land fraud point to connivance at various levels.
They point to a Land Registrar who they claim has been central to issuance of the suspect titles and is also closely related to one of the fraudsters. Following numerous complaints, she was transferred to Ngong land registry in Kajiado County, where all of a sudden causes of fraudulent activity rose so alarmingly that the office had to be temporarily closed in 2021.
