With the ongoing Ruaraka land saga, one would have thought that we have had enough of the expansive Nairobi land previously owned by Jacob Hirschfeld’s Joreth Limited. But it appears that we are not about to exhaust the intrigues that have followed this precious land.
Away from the tussles involving Nairobi businessman Francis Mburu, before the National Land Commission officials and senior officials of the Ministry of Education is yet another drama that has been brewing. Still, it is about a former Joreth land but now involving the family of the late Cabinet minister Arthur Kinyanjui Magugu and a company known as Karura Investments Limited. I will come back to that in a while. As I have written before, Joreth land is either jinxed or is the playground of land barons eager to short-change those who show interest in it.
Two years ago, this week, Kenyans were treated to a scandal over a chunk of Joreth land in Muthaiga North which President Moi had apparently sold twice; first to a private developer, DPS International - who later sold it to USIU- and to US-based Dr George Kiongera’s Maestro Connections Health Systems Ltd.
Dr Kiongera, who co-owns Maestro with his wife Elizabeth Njeri, said he bought the piece of land for Sh500 million while USIU insisted they bought the land from another vendor, in 1993. Mr Magugu, once a powerful Kiambu politician, decided to subdivide into two portions his 41 hectares (No. LR 12422/9) plot in Nairobi shortly after losing his Githunguri seat in 1992 to Dr Josephat Karanja, Moi’s former Vice President. The two portions were registered as LR 12422/203 and LR12422/204 and were in his name. He then subdivided 12422/204 into two other portions and sold one portion LR 12422/319 to Karura Investments Limited and retained the other portion. The titles were dated November 25, 1993.
When Mr Magugu died in September 2012, his wife Margaret became the administrator of the multi-million shilling estate.
Last year, Mrs Magugu moved to court seeking to kick out Karura Investments from the coffee farm they had bought from her husband arguing that the subdivision of LR 12422/204 was “fraudulently done.” It looked like a classic case of having your cake and eating it too. But Mrs Magugu wanted these two titles revoked.
Mrs Magugu had told the court that in order to conceal the fraud, both Karura Investments and a city land surveyor had one portion registered in the name of Mr Magugu and that she only discovered that fact after Mr Magugu’s death.
But was this the truth? The High Court says that Mrs Magugu “is not acting honestly and in good faith.” The reason for this is that Mr Magugu had never complained about the trespass on his land for the 19 years he lived between the subdivision of the land and the entry of Karura Investments.
“During the lifetime of the deceased, he saw (Karura Investments) who was in possession of LR 12422/319 and never raised any issue as to the occupation and ownership of the land in issue,” said Justice E.O. Obaga.
And like in the Ruaraka land case where Mr Mburu returned after more than 24 years to seek compensation for the school land, the judge wondered why it had taken Mrs Magugu 24 years after the registration of LR 12422/319 to realise that there was an intruder.
The judge could not understand why “five years after the demise of the deceased, and 24 years after the registration of LR 12422/319, the plaintiff is coming out to claim that she discovered that the subdivision process and registration of the suit properties was done fraudulently and that the deceased’s signature was forged.”
In one of the withdrawn notice of motion, Mrs Magugu had asked the court to restrain Karura Investments from “evicting her” from the property and had even sought police assistance. As the High Court found out – and Justice Obaga said as much – “the truth of the matter was that she was not in possession of LR 12422/319 and what she had intended to achieve in case the orders were granted was to evict (Karura Investments).”
One of the most interesting aspects of the case was that Mrs Magugu had been selling LR 12422/318 – although she had been telling the court that this parcel and the Karura Investment parcel were fraudulently done. “It is clear that (Mrs Magugu’s) claim is frivolous…lacking in substance and lacks bona fides,” said the judge. “Her excuse for this is that she was acting in the honest mistake that the property she was selling had been subdivided in a genuine manner until she undertook private investigations which revealed otherwise.”
The Magugu family case is interesting in that nobody in the family could explain why no questions were raised after Karura Investments took over the land. “Discovery of fraud is not confined to Mrs Magugu. It also goes to Mr Magugu during his lifetime,” the court said. “If the property had not been transferred to the first defendant, the deceased would have questioned the first defendant’s claim to the land."
Magugu was a land economist and was therefore not naïve on such matters. Son of colonial Senior Chief Magugu Waweru, the former minister was one of the beneficiaries of colonial collaboration; just like other sons of colonial chiefs who earned American education. At La Verne University in California, he graduated in 1963 with a BA degree joining a select group of Kenyans with a university degree. He also graduated with an MA from University of Stockholm where he studied land economics.
When he came back, he amassed lots of land and became part of the wheeler-dealers who got a chunk of Jacob Hirschfeld’s Joreth land.
While dismissing the case as an “abuse of the court process” the judge also declared the case to be statute barred. “Even if the plaintiff's claims were true, still the law expected that time for purposes of limitation would have started running when the deceased would have with reasonable diligence discovered the alleged fraud.”
Away from this case is a Memorandum of Understanding between the estate of Arthur Magugu in which it had agreed to give six individuals 48 per cent of 33.3 hectares “as a gesture of reciprocity” if they manage to “free from encumbrances whatsoever including removal of squatters and any adverse claimants to the land by exposing and procuring the cancellation of any fake titles.”
The law firm with an office in Nairobi’s Koinange Street was to handle the transfer from the Mother Title including the subdivisions.
One of the main beneficiaries was Symbiosis Limited, which was to seek the removal of squatters and get 24 per cent of Magugu’s land. The other 24 per cent was to go to a Ms Rukia Salim, F.K Kamau, and Ms E.M Wahome. This MoU was signed on August 19, 2015.
Why Mrs Magugu would easily part with her land is the same question being asked on why Mr Mburu easily parted with the Sh1.5 billion which was compensation for his Ruaraka land.
