How I faced Uhuru’s fury after hiding title deed to block KU land takeover

It was dated October 13, 2020. It read in part, “His Excellency, President Uhuru Kenyatta has directed the Ministry of Lands and Physical Planning to fast track the issuance of title deeds to residents of Kamae Settlement in Roysambu, Nairobi County. It has been established that the Kamae squatters occupy land belonging to the University. In order to undertake the excision and settle these squatters, you are hereby requested to surrender the University title LR 11026/2) and offer the necessary support to facilitate excision of 168 acres of land. It is expected that this measure will solve the problem of squatters, once and for all. Please take necessary actions accordingly.”

I read the letter several times and asked myself, “168 acres of Kenyatta University land for squatters?” Something was seriously wrong. Immediately, I called the then KU Council Chairman, (Shem) Migot-Adholla, and briefed him about the letter.

“That is very irregular,” he told me. He was opposed to delineation of the university land.

After wide consultations with other stakeholders and our lawyers, I wrote back to Kinyua on October 28 and clarified to him that the Kamae squatters were only allocated 30 acres in 1980s by the then President Daniel arap Moi. I further informed him that it was the illegal land grabbers (hiding under squatters) who had built decent houses that were occupying another 138 acres. I told Kinyua that some of the so-called squatters had fraudulently sold land to third parties.

Generally, our problem as a university was not Kamae squatters but rather some well-connected people who had grabbed a huge chunk of university land and were receiving some kind of protection. If anything, I personally wanted to see the genuine squatters settled.

I mentioned to Kinyua in my letter that KU had taken this matter to court in 2002 and we were still awaiting the final judgement.

***

In May 2022, President Uhuru chaired a Cabinet meeting that reportedly resolved to hive off a total of 410 acres of KU land to be allocated thus; 190 acres for Kamae squatters, 180 acres for Kenyatta University Teaching, Referral and Research Hospital, 30 acres for World Health Organisation (WHO) and 10 acres for the Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.

I received a letter from Kinyua dated July 4, 2022 instructing me to “immediately surrender the main KU title deed by close of business on Tuesday 5th July 2022.” Again, this communication had been directed to Prof Paul Wainaina, the Vice Chancellor. The Council had cleverly and deliberately been left out. The Head of Public Service was making the matter look personal.

The 410 acres quoted was more than half of the university land. I shook my head in disbelief. For a country to develop, higher education plays a very important role. Thus, serious countries add more land to learning institutions rather than engaging in spirited battles to reduce it.

Following Kinyua’s letter, the Council met, deliberated, and concluded that the VC did not have the powers to cede university land. That decision was communicated back to Kinyua in a letter dated July 5, 2022. In that letter, the Council stated that, “The university is the registered owner of the land in question. Therefore, under Article 40 of the Constitution, the university’s ownership rights are protected. These are fundamental rights that cannot be limited, except within strict confines of the law.

Read: Prof Wainaina: Why Uhuru and Ruto wanted me out as KU VC

“Article 62(4) forbids disposal of public land except in terms of an Act of Parliament specifying the nature and terms of that disposal. To the best of the Council’s knowledge, the statute envisaged in article 62(4) is the Land Act, 2012, which contains provisions on compulsory acquisition of land. The Council is not aware whether such legal provisions have been taken into account.”

In one of the letters, Kinyua had indicated the reason of excision being that “the University has a lot of idle land”. In its response, the Council informed him that “KU has a detailed masterplan which shows how it intends to utilise its land to provide much-needed education services to Kenyan citizenry.”

Then came the final verdict, “The Council is concerned that your letter requests the VC to surrender the title deed in a manner that is not clear. The Council would hesitate to allow such surrender and warns itself, again, of its responsibility as a custodian of the university land charged with the duty to protect and preserve the same. In view of the foregoing, the Council, respectfully, is unable to accede to the request to surrender the university title deed.” This letter was signed by the Chairman, Prof Shem Migot-Adholla.

In other words, the Council was informing Kinyua that as far as the issue of ceding KU land was concerned, he was dealing with the wrong office. The chairman was my main source of conviction. He made me feel that I was doing the right thing. Maybe, and just maybe, things would have been different had I not been in the company of such a steadfast man. I will forever cherish that man who later died in October 2024.

Meanwhile, Kinyua kept pushing for the mother-title. He wrote me another letter stating, “This is to invite you to a meeting on Wednesday 6th July 2022 at 11.30am, at Harambee House, 2nd Floor Boardroom, to discuss the excision of Kenyatta University land. Please attend in person.” Kinyua was inviting me alone as the VC to make a big decision over a weighty matter. He was, technically, isolating me from the university’s top decision-making organ; the Council.

I went ahead and attended the meeting. I was alone from KU. Several government officials majorly from Lands Ministry, led by the PS Lands, Dr Nicholas Muraguri were present while the Education Ministry was represented by a Mr Ndambuki.

I felt isolated and cornered. I sat quietly and listened as the Lands officials showed newly drafted maps and demarcations of the KU land. The members present seemed poised to support the demarcation.

“What about you Bwana VC, do you support the proposal?” Kinyua asked me.

I told him that I was the wrong person to comment on it (positively or negatively) because the matter was best handled by the KU Council.

“What do we do?” he asked me.

I told him that the best option was to reach out to the KU Council and get their views. After that meeting, Kinyua wrote to the KU Council and invited them for a meeting at Harambee House on Tuesday July 12, 2022, at 2.00pm. The sole agenda was to discuss and conclude the ceding of the land, it was indicated. Meanwhile, a lot was going on behind the scenes. Phone calls were being made and received left, right and centre.

***

That weekend, on Saturday July 9, I attended a Kenyatta University Pension Scheme meeting in Naivasha. After the meeting, I visited a friend called Joseph Kaigwa, a former teacher, who was holding a retirement party at his home While there, I received a call from a colleague in Nairobi. He asked me, “Prof, what have you done to the President?” Before I could come to terms with what he was asking, he went ahead to say, “He (Uhuru Kenyatta) has spoken very harshly about you in a public function!”

That is when I learned that the President, on that day, had held a ground-breaking ceremony on KU land for the construction of a WHO Emergency Lab. I had not been invited to that event. In fact, I was not aware of it. But the planners, clandestinely, placed a chair on the dais and labelled it ‘KU Vice-Chancellor’ ostensibly to show the President that I had deliberately skipped his function. When people are driven by sinister motives, they can go any lengths to justify their mischief.

President Uhuru Kenyatta was upset that I had refused to hand over the mother title deed to facilitate the sub-division of the KU land. He threatened to deal with me ‘swiftly and effectively’. He even tore into my personality and rubbished me as ‘a professor without knowledge.’ His words were, “watu wengine wamesoma, hadi ni profesa, lakini hawana akili.” The literal meaning of the words was that some people were educated to the point of being professors but had no brains.

He vowed to remove me from office. He said in Kiswahili, tutaenda na yeye nyumbani, meaning he would fire me as he goes into retirement. To put this in perspective, his second term was ending in a month’s time and general elections were scheduled for August 9th 2022.

I left Kaigwa’s party a very disturbed man. That evening, my phone kept ringing repeatedly. Most of the numbers that called me were strange. I suspected that some people had started trailing me. As I left Naivasha for Nairobi, I was not sure if I could reach safely or I would be arrested, kidnapped or even killed on the way to Nairobi. I knew I was a wanted man. I went to my house that evening but felt quite unsettled. I was sensing danger. I decided to go to a hotel along Thika Road where I booked myself in using a fake name. While there, at around 8.30pm, my phone rang repeatedly. It was one of the State House operatives calling me. I declined his call. My instincts told me that he knew where I was. Probably he was in that hotel too, monitoring my movements.

Read: Court reinstates Prof Wainaina as Kenyatta University VC

The following day, on a Sunday, I woke up and saw a black vehicle parked next to mine. When I left for home, it followed me. I reached near Thika Road Mall and took the direction of Nairobi. About half an hour later, I drove back towards Kahawa Wendani estate and saw the same car parked by the roadside.

That evening, I could neither sleep in my house nor check into a hotel. I went to the university around 8pm and opted to spend the night in the office. My office staff Peris Maina and Eva Mugo made the necessary arrangements. I spread a mattress on the floor and slept. I felt much safer there, after all, it was not easy for those looking for me to expect me to sleep in the office.

On Monday, July 12, early in the morning, a call came from Kinyua’s office informing me that the meeting scheduled for the next day between Kinyua and the KU Council had been cancelled. I was further informed to prepare to receive a new Council. The one led by Prof Migot-Adholla had been disbanded with immediate effect.

The then Principal Secretary (PS) in the State Department for University Education, Ambassador Simon Nabukwesi, also called and informed me that a new Council had been formed and was scheduled to hold its first meeting in KU at 2pm that same day. Everything was moving fast. Reason? KU mother-title must be signed off by the top university leadership.

Actions speak louder than words. The removal of the Council was ominous enough to indicate that the VC was also on his way out as the President had earlier threatened. A lot had been going on for the past two weeks. It became clear that I was on my way out because of blocking powerful people’s interests of grabbing and altering the records of KU land before the elections.

After receiving the two phone calls in quick succession, I immediately developed an idea of clearing my name and setting some records straight before I could be thrown out of office. I chose to do it publicly. At 9.00am, I called for an urgent staff meeting at the amphitheatre and informed members to expect anything. I also explained to them in detail, and brought to light, what had been going on in the past few days regarding the university land. They had been following the intrigues through the media and grapevine and were aware of what I was facing. I made them understand some of the things they had not heard about, regarding university land saga.

There was pin-drop silence in the amphitheatre as I read to them some of the astonishing letters that I had received from Kinyua. I could see some staff members shaking their heads in disbelief. “This is probably the last time you will see me as your Vice-Chancellor,” I told them in a speech that was loaded with hints of farewell. At 2.00pm, the newly appointed Council chaired by the former UoN VC, Prof Crispus Kiamba, arrived at KU. They were led by Nabukwesi, the then PS for Higher Education. They went straight to the Council boardroom on the 6th floor of the main administration building where they held their meeting. I was not invited. They could not have invited me because I was the subject of their discussion.

About an hour later, Nabukwesi came down to my office on the 5th floor and told me, “Prof, the Council has requested that you step aside from your position. There are certain things they want to investigate about you.” He spoke in his characteristic diplomatic voice. According to him, the Council wanted me to write a resignation letter. He spoke about government systems and hierarchy, but I felt that he was just beating around the bush. He made it appear like he was not part of the Council’s decision.

After giving him time to explain himself, I asked him, “Bwana PS, as my former student and friend, just tell me the truth. What misconduct have they discovered against me as KU Vice-Chancellor? Is this not mere witch-hunt?” I was feeling upset and rather emotional.

Nabukwesi said it was a case bordering on insubordination. The insubordination they were alleging about was, I believe, the firmness I had exhibited, alongside the disbanded Council led by Prof Migot-Adholla, in protecting university land and refusing to surrender the mother-title to be mutilated. I knew they were on a fishing expedition. I told the PS to tell the Kiamba-led Council to write to me officially and list all the wrongs I had committed and take me through a disciplinary hearing before I could step aside.

I made it clear that I was not going to be shoved around easily. As Nabukwesi walked back to the boardroom, I walked out of the office and went to relax at our meeting centre, the Kenyatta University Conference Centre (KUCC) located in a quiet corner of the university. I ordered for my favourite cup of ginger tea. Unfortunately, I could not enjoy it because I was feeling very low, worked up and disappointed at the same time. I then decided to go home at around 5.00pm. The new Council was still in the meeting in the university boardroom.

They demanded for the KU land mother-title. But where was it? They searched my office but they could not find it. The staff in my office were threatened with dire consequences in case they failed to produce it, but no one found it. Interestingly, this most sought-after document was right there in the office, but it was only me, and one other person in KU, who knew where it was. This Council, which had been under instruction to go back to Nairobi with the title deed, searched for it in vain.

That evening, at around 8pm, I received a call from one of my office staff who informed me that the Council had suspended me for 30 days, and an acting VC had been appointed immediately. A letter had been written to me communicating the same. The letter read in part, “You are hereby suspended from office for 30 days and it is expected that you will hand over the responsibilities of the office and any other related facilities and resources with immediate effect.” The letter indicated that the DVC (Academics), Prof Waceke Wanjohi, had been appointed the acting VC.

© Paul K. Wainaina

Tomorrow in the Sunday Nation:A prime university teaching hospital that secretly changed hands and the desperate fight to regain control