Inside Kenya's land grabbing 'deep state'

The ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development has now admitted that there are senior administrators working in cahoots with rogue lawyers, brokers and judicial officers to grab real estate heritage from legal owners.

So grave is the matter that a senior judicial officer is defending herself in a Kajiado court over a 300 acres piece of land that she has been accused of grabbing from peasants from Embakasi hoods in partnership with her male fiancé.

The lawyers defending the peasants revealed to AVDelta News that “to realise how serious land grabbing menace is in this country, note that we are battling the judiciary’s big grabbers in the very courts that they are the bosses”.

According to CS Alice Wahome, the composite network of evil manipulate land records, use weaknesses in law, preside kangaroo courts in land boards and eventually use court injunctions and police force to win evictions.

Ms Wahome gave an example of a dispute between 3,000 realtors in Kiambu County’s land ref: Ruiru/Ruiru East Block 4 –Gikumari/ LR NO 5000 and IR Numbers 72811 and 172788 measuring 2,500 acres.

“Some powerful people—some in government—have manipulated land search and presented findings that purport to have emanated from my ministry depicting the 3,000 poor owners to be squatters. I have checked and confirmed from both the Ruiru land registry and ministry records and discovered the hand of land grabbers,” she said.

She said the schemers, said to be a senior administrator in Central Region, two county commissioners and a Deputy County Commissioner working in cahoots with two land dealers in National Security Intelligence briefs AVDelta News has seen-- were in the process of winning judicial eviction orders against the 3, 000 low income investors.

“The legal mischief that they were applying was to present findings of a search under Registration of Titles Act (Cap 281) instead of the Registered Land Act (Cap 300) that covers Ruiru. With the aid of wicked legal help, the schemers intended to grab the land through soliciting for judicial eviction orders,” she said.

Ms Wahome now says President William Ruto has ordered her to roll out an action plan that will spearhead the war against fraudulent procurement of land documents and record in the country which she said is a crisis. 

“I now call upon the relevant government agencies to join us in making sure the culprits of such acts are brought to book. The menace is widespread and deep rooted but the president has assured us of his direct support,” she said adding that the ongoing digitisation of land records will help in the fight.

A look into some other random areas makes it clearer by every dawn that some National Government Administration Officers might be conspiring with corrupt brokers and dealers to grab land from rightful owners.

A recent case in Ngelelya village in Murang’a County where a chief tricked 20 year old to sign an agreement between him and a local land broker of disposing his widowed mother’s 2.5  acres of land for Sh10,000 cash money and a rickety motorbike is a point of reference.

“It is unheard of… Chiefs do not initiate land deals. They only make introductory letters to identify successors. That is one act that amazes on how daring land grabbers can be,” said Murang’a president of the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) Mr Alex Ndegwa.

He added: “The free legal clinics that we hold annually at the grassroots bring to the fore the mess that some government officers inflict on vulnerable families by aiding grabbers to dispossess them of their lands.”

Murang’a Senator Joe Nyutu told AVDelta News that "we are in a big mess when it comes to land grabbing”.

"Land grabbing cartels are known to occupy nearly all critical offices of governance and the powers they wiled are immense and by a single phone call to the judiciary, police headquarters and even in the military, can spell destitution for a whole village that has existed since God created soil,” Mr Nyutu said.

He said the grabbers target lands that are in group ranches, those embroiled in succession tussles, land owned by illiterates, that owned by widows and orphans as well as that registered under elderly people with no successors.

Further, Mr Nyutu said land acquired by government for public utility ends having corrupted disclosures to hive some parts for the grabbers.

“We have Del Monte land in Murang’a and Kiambu counties where thousands of acres are at the centre of great interest from all manner of schemers. We are talking of about 10,000 acres some meant for settling area residents and others for government projects. The president should exert himself and hold at bay the lurking grabbers,” he said.

Director of Criminal Investigations (DCI) Mohammed Amin revealed how two daring land grabbing agents showed up at the DCI headquarters in Kiambu Road on December 8, 2023, carrying Sh200,000 to recruit allies from the specialised crime busters.

“Jackson Mwangi Wambui and Elijah Macharia who are renowned serial land fraudsters who target elderly white residents in posh Nairobi suburb. They were arrested inside our headquarters imagine, after they showed up at the Land Fraud Investigations Unit (LFIU) offices attempting to influence our officers with Sh200,000 about a case we were pursuing against them,” Mr Amin said.

He added that “investigations have also bared grabbers who hack land registry data and use information stolen to stage property takeovers, some even impersonating senior security officers to intimidate the bottlenecks around property transfers”.

Another case involves Murang'a based Kagaa Farmers’ Cooperative Society where a network of government officials have been accused of playing monkey business with share register so as to steal some plots.

An audit report that was tabled by former Agriculture and Cooperatives CS Peter Munya captures then Murang’a South Deputy County Commissioner (DCC) Mr Mawira Mungania having on August 10, 2020, led a team of “unknown characters to raid the offices of the ranch where crucial documents were stolen” and which is recorded as OB number 09//10/08/2020 at Kabati Police Station.

In his response, Mr Mungania defends his action as “normal security operation to prevent breach of peace and to safeguard shareholders’ property”.

The report also tells of how a senior administrator was tear-gassed from his office as he presided over an illegal land board session. The officer was eventually transferred and demoted as punishment.

Mr Munya lamented that “many ranches in the country are in a mess as a result of those entrusted to serve the people going rogue and instead becoming a cartel out to look for what can be stolen instead of helping the members solve their challenges.”

He said the ranchers lose their plots in the machinations executed by corrupt politicians, administrators, brokers and surveyors.

Former Embakasi Ranching Company Chairperson Phideli Wangari said that “if anyone wants to do a research on how land grabbers have captured this country, we are the right resource”.

She said that “we have come to realise that nearly all high offices have undeclared coordinator of land grabbing and interesting is that even the corrupt land barons also swindle each other”.

She said her company is a theatre of the absurd “where you encounter a case of a senior police officer grabbed our land but in turn was swindled by a politician who also was dispossessed by a judge”.

"Even some senior judicial officers were dispossessed parcels of land that they had grabbed while in office by politicians, security officers or well-connected land dealers,” she said.

She said pursuing justice in courts has proved to be a tall order and is considering dialogue with the crooks since “we are dealing with a vicious and cruel network of land grabbers that has money and power and cases against them can take a lifetime to even take off in courts”.

She said the crooks just grab land, go to court where they seek and get development and occupation orders “and we only remain as squatters and trespassers in our own lands and the government is just there spectating”.  

Another case is the Muthanga Farm’s 1,000 squatters in Murang'a County who have resisted eviction for the past 58 years, the last 25 being through sometimes staging violent defiance to court orders to evict them.

President Ruto intervened in August 2022 and ordered Central Regional Commissioner Fred Shisia to arbitrate the warring parties and come up with a win-win solution.

This led the government to announce that it will not implement the eviction orders that had remained in force for 25 years to clear the squatters from the 1,040 acres of land.