Former Prisons boss Reuben Mutua family battles to keep 800-acre Makueni land
The former Commissioner of Prisons, Mr Reuben Nzioka Mutua. He died in Nairobi on May 26, 1986 following a road accident.
The High Court is on June 6 expected to settle a longstanding land dispute involving the family of the former Kenya Prisons Commissioner Reuben Nzioka Mutua and squatters in Makueni County.
Mr Mutua was the head of the prison service until 1986 when he died in a road accident. By the time of his death, he had not secured the title of the land which his family says was brought with the late President Moi’s help for his decorated public service.
Mutua, Gen Jackson Mulinge and Brig. Mahmoud Mohammed helped quash the attempted coup of 1982 and the late former President Daniel arap Moi gave the prisons boss an opportunity to buy the vast land in Emali, Makueni County as a reward for his heroic act.
Both the squatters and the family of the late Mutua now claim the land measuring 800 acres in Kinyoo area near Emali Township.
Mr Mutua’s son went to court in 2020 after failed attempts to evict the squatters. But “authorities said they had no orders to act on," Dr Peter Mutua, a son of the late prisons’ boss told Nation.
Mr Mutua's family is relying on, among other things, a 2003 ruling by Justice Phillip Waki against an attempt by the squatters to lay claim on the land. They also bank on a 2009 ruling ordering Seku to move to repossess its 5,000 acres of land.
“After my father’s death, my mother took over as administrator, but she too did not complete the title processing until she died in 2002. Both are buried on the land with my sister, brother and his wife,” said Dr Mutua.
Peter says before their mother died, his elder brother was responsible for the farm, and he leased it to residents of Kongo village (across the River Muooni) without proper agreements.
The lease continued until the family issued an eviction notice to the residents after their mother passed on.
“When the notice was issued, the “tenants” took us to court claiming that we were not the owners of the property, a petition that was dismissed by Justice Waki in 2003 based on “a complete lack of proof,” Mutua says.
“They continued this relationship with my brother until 2007 when he demolished the family home (with the help of the people from Kongo) to spite the family and they moved, first to Sultan Hamud and then later to Nakuru where he died in 2010,” he adds.
In his absence, the residents continued to till the land.
“When I returned from the US in 2011, I took over the property and began to visit it frequently, getting rid of the people who had attempted to put up structures on the property,” Dr Mutua says.
But he encountered trouble when he tried to get the title deed and the process has stalled at the Ministry of Lands.
The property file “disappeared” making it impossible to process the title.
“By God’s grace in 2017 we found someone to help us get the title, a process that we completed in 2019,” said Peter.
“During this period, I was constantly on the ground in Emali. In September 2018, I noticed a structure that had been put up on the land which I demolished. I also engaged the DCI in Nzaui to arrest the people we found farming on the land,” he said.
Peter claims that the person arrested for putting up the structure initially claimed to have bought it but later changed his story to say that he was a squatter.
In December 2019 and April 2020, the family tried to put beacons on the land but their efforts failed when the squatters became violent. The family was advised to go to court.
The ruling is expected to be delivered on June 6.
