Sh2.3bn land for Mau Mau war heroes that never was

The exiting British settlers returned to the government ranches and other vast tracts to resettle the war heroes after independence in1963, but even this land ended up benefiting a select few well-connected individuals.

Today, the liberation heroes’ descendants form a huge part of the poorest population in Kenya, with nothing to show, save for tales of war, battle scars and a constant cry for justice to anybody who cares to listen.

Betrayal, scandal

It is a cry laced with pain, betrayal and scandal as schemers continue crawling out of the woodwork promising the war veterans’ families land at only a few thousand shillings, before striding into the sunset with their cash.

The most painful part is that some of these swindlers happen to be within the Mau Mau veterans’ circles.

A case in point is Ms Evelyn Wanjugu, a woman who claims to be the daughter of Field Marshall Dedan Kimathi.

Her story begins with the takeover of a lobby group started by one of Dedan Kimathi’s sons, Meshack Waciuri Kimathi, which sought to document the history of the Mau Mau at a time when legitimate war heroes were dwindling quite fast.

Ms Wanjugu took over the lobby group, called Dead Kimathi Foundation (DKF), in 2016, some seven years after Waciuri’s death in 2009.

Today, Ms Wanjugu runs DKF from a tiny office on the seventh floor of KCS House along Mama Ngina Street, some 100 metres from Kimathi’s statue in the heart of Nairobi.

Mau Mau veterans recognised

DKF, which initially sought to document Mau Mau history for posterity, has now pocketed more than Sh300 million from mainly senior citizens on the promise that it would resettle their families on prime land that never was. It all started in 2003, when the Mwai Kibaki administration, for the first time in history, recognised the Mau Mau veterans as national heroes, sparking hope that historical injustices against the country’s liberators would be addressed.

This glimmer of hope shone brighter after Mau Mau descendants successfully sued the British government and got compensation to the tune of Sh2.7 billion for 5,228 victims.

The Mau Mau lobby group leaders allegedly embezzled the cash, leading to disaffection and giving rise to more than five splinter groups.

Some of these groups started seeking compensation afresh from Britain and resettlement by the Kenyan government.

It is against this background that the late Waciuri started DKF to document the history of Mau Mau, the war to which his father gallantly sacrificed his life.

As the splinter groups continued emerging, Ms Wanjugu, the daughter of Kimathi’s widow, Mukami, started the Mukami Kimathi Foundation. At around the same time the Kibaki regime built a house and bought a car for Mukami and gave jobs to her children. Ms Wanjugu, who was working at Wilson Airport as a receptionist for the Kenya Airports Authority up until around 2016, quietly exited the state corporation and controversially took over the DKF as CEO.

The hostile takeover, as it were, sparked sibling rivalry within the Kimathi family.

Foundation

In 2017, a year after taking over, Ms Wanjugu merged Mukami Kimathi Foundation (MKF) and DKF, appointing herself as CEO and naming herself and her mother as directors. The Nation has also learnt that she has employed her daughters Elsy Mukami, Damaris Nyambura and son Teddy Mukaria in the foundation.

Also in the upper echelons of the foundation is Mr Ndung’u Wangenye, a former unionist and currently the Nyandarua County Education, Culture and Arts executive.

Ms Wanjugu’s controversy starts with her paternal ties to the independence hero.

Findings by the Nation placed Ms Wanjugu’s birth in the 1970s, yet the Mau Mau war hero – and supposedly her father – was executed in 1957.

Equally controversial was her announcement that she had found the late Kimathi’s body at Kamiti Prison, claims that the government denied.

Recently, she claimed police officers were out to kill her after she was arrested for breaching curfew regulations.

The most controversial thing about her, however, has to do with the overambitious multimillion-shilling resettlement plan under which she had promised to resettle more than 35,000 people on a contested 12,000-acre piece of land in Rumuruti, Laikipia County. This she did after taking over the DKF and merging it with MKF.

“After realising time was running out and the veterans still had no land, my mother instructed me to unite all Mau Mau heroes and help them get land independently. But there were so many differences between the splinter groups so my first task was to unite them under DKF,” Ms Wanjugu told the Nation.

Plan collapsed

Initially, in 2016, she and Eden Park and Country Gardens had announced plans to procure 18,000 acres of land in Laikipia, but the plan collapsed.

The following year, she announced DKF had identified 12,842 acres in rural Thome, Rumuruti, Laikipia County. The land belongs to Mathira/ Kihindwi/Gitaraga/ Kahonoki Farmers Association and the management of the group was willing to sell it at Sh2.3 billion.

The association – which comprises more than 3,000 owners – and DKF entered an agreement to purchase the land at Sh180,000 per acre.

To finance the purchase, any interested veteran was to pay a Sh3,000 registration fee and a further Sh5,000 for shares.

The Sh8,000 would give each veteran three-and-a-half acres once the purchase was finalised. Additionally, they were required to pay a Sh200 standard monthly fee. The foundation promised to top up the rest to make up Sh2.3 billion through state and donor funding.

The deal sounded good to the veterans, many of who had grown weary of waiting for the government to help them. The price, too, was not too steep.

As to how the 3,000 would-be beneficiaries increased tenfold, Ms Wanjugu explained: “We realised that even the descendants have been neglected and we did not want to leave anybody out.”

Red flag

The first red flag was that the contributions were being kept in personal bank accounts. At first, the contributions were via mobile money transfer. It was claimed the cash was being collected even on the streets of Nairobi, specifically at the Kencom bus terminus. Some pioneer members who spoke to the Nation said they questioned Ms Wanjugu on her handling of the cash.

“The original plan was to work under the UN-Habitat guidelines but she instead opted to run the programme personally. The manner in which she was handling people’s cash was suspicious, so we decided to dissociate ourselves,” Mr Douglas Karanja said.

Documents seen by the Nation show DKF entered an agreement with the farmers’ association on December 13, 2018 to purchase the 12,842 acres at Sh2,311,560,000.

The foundation was to pay Sh31 million upfront and Sh200,150,000 within 60 days of the initial payment. The balance was to be cleared by July 2019.

The Nation has since learnt the foundation risks forfeiting the payments already made for breaching the sale agreement.

Mr Nelson Ashitiva, the farmers’ association’s legal representative, confirmed a clause in the sale agreement stated the foundation would forfeit payments made if they failed to honour the agreed-upon payment schedule.

“We have given them extensions to raise the money as we see if we can find another buyer. If they are not able to raise the balance, there is the risk of losing the money but we chose not to deal with them ruthlessly,” Mr Ashitiva said.

To date, the foundation has managed to pay only Sh66 million in four instalments of Sh31 million, Sh19 million, Sh10 million and Sh6 million. The last payment was made around September.

Disagreements

There have been disagreements among the land owners, though, with some demanding to have their land back. Those who spoke to the Nation claimed they were never consulted on the deal.

“We are in talks with the national and county governments for funding. We have also approached foreign governments like Britain to support our cause,” Ms Wanjugu said when asked whether the foundation had run out of options.

Correspondence seen by the Nation indicates none of the institutions approached have committed to fund the scheme. In fact, the Office of the President and the 47 county governments did not respond.

Nonetheless, Ms Wanjugu and DKF have continued to register new members, opening about 20 offices countrywide. As of September 2020, DKF said it had registered more than 35,000 members countrywide.

After collecting more than Sh300 million over the past two years, Ms Wanjugu has no land to show for the money collected.

Meanwhile, she still drives expensive cars. The Nation learnt her family recently moved into a Sh11 million house in Komarock 5A estate.

Queried about her source of wealth, Ms Wanjugu claims it is from proceeds of her agriculture venture.

She is now betting on a miracle, literally, to turn Sh8,000 into three-and-a-half acres worth Sh630,000 for 35,000 Kenyans.

“Do you not believe in miracles? You wait and see,” she said.

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