Anxiety as Utawala residents await completion of land grabbing case involving a senior NIS officer
Sometimes before 2019, land fraudsters from the Lands ministry and Survey Kenya, Embakasi Ranching company and the public were shocked to learn that a Senior NIS officer had through the intervention of former President Uhuru Kenyatta obtained a Lease for his plot.
The notorious ring however sponsored one of their own to take the officer to court in 2021 claiming ownership of the plot.
In May 2023 the first part of the case where the Applicant had applied for an interlocutory orders to stop the officer, embakasi ranching and the land registar from doing anything on the plot was dismissed with costs.
Hearing of the main suit to determine the genuine owner of the plot begins on 3rd October, with residents saying that if the fraudsters wrestle the plot from the officer, they will conclude that nothing is impossible within courts of law.
Records in our possession show the officer bought the plot in 2007 from one of the Directors at ERC while those held by the fraudsters show they bought the plot in 2018 but backdated to 2011 from unknown person.
Further the plot number held by the fraudsters does not exist in the said area at all.
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In 2020, the matter caught the attention of State House Nairobi where the then President Uhuru Kenyatta is believed to have made a phone call to the then Cabinet Secretary for lands inquiring about ownership of the plot.
The land in question initially belonged to a late Director of ERC and was sold to the officer by his son who did the necessary paper work at the lands offices and documents given to the officer.
But the fraudsters are believed to have made attempts to alter records to dispose him off the plot.
The matter got out of hand to the extend that Head of Fraud Department at the DCI summoned three directors at his office and after verifying the officer’s papers,they were told to expunge the fake records and write to the Lands Ministry to notify it of the same changes.
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