Embakasi Ranching Company in Ruai, Nairobi.
| Evans Habil | Nation Media GroupNews
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The other side of the deadly tussle for vast Sh2 trillion land in Embakasi
What you need to know:
- Well-oiled politicians, police and senior civil servants have been scrambling for a portion of the land.
- Many landowners affiliated to the ranch acquired land but cannot dare set foot on the same.
Justice is very expensive, Peter Sakala, 59, said as he wiped off sweat from his brow. On his laps lay heaps of paperwork whose contents would have made for a fortune for the former workers of Juja Sisal Farm Limited.
These are documents that trace the ex-workers’ tiring journey in search for justice over the 5,005 acres registered, LR. No. 10904/2 Block 105, along Kangundo Road, Nairobi.
Ensconced between Njiru and Ruai, the vast land has been at the heart of endless bloody, protracted court wrangles within the controversial Embakasi Ranching Company Limited.
The Juja Sisal Farm ex-workers claim the vast land should have been their hefty inheritance from their former boss – Sir Wigum.
Mr Sakala is the chairperson of the ex-Ranching Employees Self-Help Group, a lobby group for the former workers of Juja Sisal Farm and their survivors.
It had over 600 members, according to Mr Sakala who were to share out the land “that for over four decades, the Embakasi Ranching Company Limited has been profiteering from.”
“Sir Wigum left the country before settling our salaries, allowances and other benefits. He handed over the title deed to our farm manager, Edward Itindi, for equal subdivision as compensation for employees’ emoluments at the ratio of five acres and two cows per employee,” explained 84 year-old Josphat Mutua Mbole. “By then, the parcel, LR. No. 10904/2 Block 105, was occupied by Juja Sisal Farm employees and other squatters.”
Peter Sakala, chairperson of the Ex-Ranching Employees Self-Help Group in Njiru, Josphat Mutua Mbole, 84, a resident of Ruai, and a former employee of Juja Sisal Farm Limited, and Dabo Liban Boru, whose husband was a former employee of Juja Sisal Farm Limited during an interview at Nation Centre, Nairobi on September 30, 2023.
A resident of Ruai, Mr Mbole and his wife had worked for Sir Wigum since 1970.
In a letter to the Registrar of Titles dated December 18, 1975, Sir Wigum and Peter Beredge-the then owner and director of Juja Sisal Farm Limited, transferred LR. No.10904 to their employees.
Through their advocates, Wigum and Beredge urged the Registrar of Titles to facilitate the issuance of new title deeds to their workers.
However, nearly 47 years later, the 425 workers, who also include Mr Sakala’s mother, Dorika Asiko Sikhule – now deceased – have neither laid claim to the land nor profiteered from it.
What Mr Mbole and his former colleagues hoped would go towards their children and family as fruits of their heyday hard-work has evaporated into thin air, as they helplessly watched. Years have gone by, and a new class of young billionaires have basked on the glory of their sweat.
Well-oiled city politicians, police and senior civil servants have been scrambling for the land.
“The people who have benefitted from this land are not us- the former workers of Juja Sisal Farm. We struggled for years to make a living only for strangers to seize our land, live large and make a fortune from it,” said a distraught Mbole.
Salim Tukuta Kaema was born and bred in Ruai, where both his parents were employees at Juja Sisal Farm Limited. When Sir Wigum left, Mr Tukuta narrated, his parents were stranded.
“Though Sir Wigum had left behind land and cattle for his workers, they never benefitted from it. We, their offsprings, have been pleading in courtrooms and government offices for years but we have never been heard. Our land case has been handled by so many judges, and it never gets anywhere as they get threatened and recuse themselves,” a teary Mr Tukuta narrated.
Saturday Nation is in possession of documents that reveal how the land moved from the hands of Sir Wigum to his former workers to how various instruments were registered against the title, in quick succession, to pave way for provisional certificate of title and sub-divisions.
Embakasi Ranching Company Limited chair Phideli Wangari. She says she has a medical report stating that her heart is healthy and should her end come suspiciously, she cautions the world not to buy heart failure as the cause.
“Former Embakasi MP Muhuri Muchiri approached us with the idea to bring in directors to assist us in making the 5,005 acres profitable and we obliged,” Mr Mbole recalled.
That was in 1978 when Edward Itindi, the then farm manager at Juja Sisal Farm Limited and Mr Muchiri, acting on behalf of the former employees, handed over to the government the original title deed and list of employees.
Other crucial documents from Sir Wigum included employer’s self-explanatory letter concerning compensation to employees and the letter of surrender for subdivision and issuance of title deeds.
“Muchiri who had been entrusted by the former employees and Mr Itindi to push for the sub-division of the land at the Ministry of Lands, instead betrayed us and constituted Embakasi Ranching Company Limited with some other people,” claimed Mr Sakala.
Mr Mbole lamented: “The MP hived 1970.5 acres from LR. No. 10904/2 and constituted Embakasi Ranching Company Limited. Since a majority of us could neither read nor understand English, decisions were made on our land without our approval.”
Documents from the defunct Ministry of Lands and Planning indicate that on March 12, 1987, Embakasi Ranching acquired a title deed LR No. 42040 for the 1970.5 acres.
Also Read: Embakasi Ranching - The seat of death?
However, the former employees continued to live on the land, communally tilling it and taking care of the cows awaiting the sub-division and issuance of title deeds.
They also engaged in quarrying to eke a living since sisal farming had ceased with the exit of their employer.
A wall fencing the offices of Embakasi Ranching Company Limited in Ruai on February 24, 2021.
Between 1978 and 1990, Mr Itindi followed up with the Ministry of Lands for issuance of titles.
But his visits had not yielded any fruit by the time he passed on in 1990.
“After Mr Itindi’s death, Embakasi Ranching Company officials started harassing the former employees of Juja Sisal Farm. They sold our livestock, encroaching on our land, and enforced unlawful fees where quarrying was taking place,” Mr Sakala said.
“This pushed us to come together and form a pressure group to follow up on the sub-division process at the Ministry of Lands.”
For years, officials of the pressure group have made visits to the Ministry of Lands offices without any success.
“In one of our visits to the Ministry of Lands in 1995, we were shocked to discover that Embakasi Ranching Company Limited had secretly been issued with a title deed, LR No. 42040, dated March 12, 1987, measuring 11.7 hectares within Block 105,” Mr Sakala said.
The discovery of the title deed necessitated the group to move to court seeking orders stopping Embakasi Ranching Company directors from further subdivision and titling of Block 105.
But Civil Suit No.1737 of 1995 wasn’t successful.
“Embakasi Ranching came out strongly in court because they had very powerful and senior people in government,” Mr Sakala claimed.
On subsequent visits to the Ministry of Lands offices Mr Sakala and the ex-workers were informed that File 7086 containing the documentation of the defunct Juja Sisal Farm was missing and therefore the process of subdivision and titling could not go on.
By contrast, over the years, the activities of Embakasi Ranching have extended beyond the 1970.5 acres.
The prime land in the outskirts of Nairobi has, over the years, attracted the rich and the mighty, with 50X100 acre-plots now selling at Sh15 million. Here, senior civil servants, police, influential politicians, and affluent business people have found a haven. With this, the affluence of the city has extended eastwards along Kangundo Road. Consequently, the fortunes of Embakasi Ranching Company have bloomed.
“Politicians, police chiefs, civil servants and local administrators have apportioned themselves parcels with every change of regime. This is strategically done in order to silence us,” Mr Tukuta alleged.
And Embakasi Ranching membership is disputed to date with numerous mysterious death and violent clashes rocking it.
In 2008, independent auditors noted that Embakasi Ranching “does not maintain an up-to-date register for the control of company assets, that they were not provided with title deeds and therefore couldn’t verify the acreage of the company assets.”
On February 5, 2015, notices were published in the dailies ordering occupants of Block 105 and 106 who had settled on the land with fake land certificates of ownership, and those without any documentation to vacate.
They came as a surprise to the former Juja Sisal Farm employees who had been waiting for the issuance of titles for 37 years.
“Our houses were burnt, households and crops destroyed, and some of our members were beaten and injured. They also chased us away from our land and replaced us with their preferred members who they claimed were the lawful owners of the plots since they had been issued with title deeds. These individuals started erecting their homes side by side our homes, including perimeter fences. Some of our members ran away for fear of their lives and are currently living under pathetic conditions in the slums within the Ruai neighbourhood,” Mr Sakala said.
Some of Embakasi ranching Shareholders demonstrate outside Supreme Court on May 24, 2022 wanting justice for their grabbed land.
Mr Sakala recalled an attack on his home which was razed down destroying everything in it including crucial land documents handed over to him after Mr Itindi’s death.
Copies of original title deed, list of employees, employer self-explanatory letter concerning compensation to employees and the letter of surrender were destroyed in the fire. He reported the incident that is recorded under OB No 03/11/08/2015 at Mawe Mbili Police Post in Ruai.
“Between 2015 and 2019, the police in collaboration with Embakasi Ranching Limited Company directors were harassing our members using live bullets. They were also evicting us, destroying our properties, arresting and prosecuting us on trumped up charges such as trespass, assault and robbery with violence. This was in an effort to enforce the notice that Embakasi Ranching had published in the newspapers.”
In a letter to the National Land Commission (NLC) and copied to the Office of the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (ODPP), dated September 15, 2019, Mr Sakala complained of violation of human rights and forceful eviction from LR No. 10904/2 Block 105 Nairobi. To date, no action has been taken, he said.
Mirriam Khamasi, 42, whose mother is a former employee of Juja Sisal Farm Limited, suffered similar fate. “I was born in Ruai and I had lived at the farm all through until in early December 2021 when some goons visited us in the dead of the night. They brought down my mabati house and looted everything in it, leaving my children and I in the cold,” she recollected.
A week before the demolition, on November 30, 2021, she had been served with a notice from Embakasi Ranching.
Ms Khamasi reported the matter to the police, and even though she moved to court, there had been no progress. “Every time I went to court, I kept on being given a new date for the mentioning, but the case has never kicked off.”
Official correspondence indicates the Ministry of Lands has been aware of underhand dealings in the land.
In a letter dated August 19, 2004 the then Chief Lands Officer, S.K Mburugu writing to the directors of Embakasi Ranching Co Ltd had suspended the processing of title deeds for Blocks 105 and 106, while noting that there was unauthorised alteration of the approved subdivision scheme.
Similarly, Tom Chavangi, the then National Land Commission (NLC) cheif executive officer noted that there was disregard of court orders suspending the subdivisions and allocation of title deeds on the said land parcels in 2012.
With justice not in sight, in February 2018, Mr Sakala moved to the Commission on Administrative Justice citing in-action on complaints about Embakasi Ranching brought to the attention of the Ministry of Lands and Physical Planning and the NLC by the Ex-Ranching Employees Self-Help Group.
Shareholders of Embakasi Ranching Company limited follow proceedings during the burial ceremony of their chairman James Njoroge at Lironi in Kiambu County on September 5, 2023. Mr Njoroge died on August 26, 2023.
On March 19, 2018 the Office of the Ombudsman wrote to the NLC asking them to address the matter. To date, their pleas have never been acted upon.
Again, in March 2019 Mr Sakala forwarded complaints to the Ombudsman against Ruai Police Station over their activities regarding the ownership of LR No.10904/2 Block 105 in Nairobi.
The Ombudsman asked the Ministry of Interior and Coordination of National Government to respond to the allegations within 14 days. To date, the matter has never been responded to.
As the tussle for the vast Ruai land continues, most of the former Juja Sisal Farm Limited employees have passed on leaving behind their children and grandchildren without formal title deeds.
“Some have had to run away and continue to live in pathetic conditions within the slums without any sign of light at the end of the tunnel as the people who are running Embakasi Ranching Company Limited activities on our land are very powerful individuals who are well-connected within government circles,” said Mr Sakala.
“We appeal to President William Ruto, Lands CAbinet Secretary( CS) Zacharia Mwangi Njeru, Interior CS Prof Kithure Kindiki and Gershom Otachi Bw'omanwa- the Chairman National Land Commission to listen to our plight, even give us an appointment so that we can table our concerns and evidence,” Mr Sakala appealed.
“I appeal to President Ruto to intervene in our case so we do not lose what we worked for in our youthful days. Our children and grandchildren also deserve to lay their future on what our former master had left behind for us. Our years of hard work should not just go into waste as we watch strangers even fight for what is ours,” Mr Mbole pleaded.
