Inside tycoons’ battle for Sh4bn land
A group of tycoons who pooled Sh90 million in 1999 to buy a 54-acre land near the Windsor hotel in Nairobi.
By Brian Wasuna
Nation Media Group
What you need to know:
- Highway Registrars was tasked with linking the eCitizen accounts of Langton Investment Ltd and its shareholders.
- Highway Registrars was tasked with linking the eCitizen accounts of Langton and its shareholders.
In 2020, staff at Highway Registrars were working to link the eCitizen account of Langton Investment Ltd to those of its beneficial owners – a group of tycoons who pooled Sh90 million in 1999 to buy a 54-acre land near the Windsor hotel in Nairobi.
Langton hired Highway Registrars as its company secretary. The investment firm is owned by a group of tycoons led by David Mucai Kunyiha and Evans Mwaura Githua.
Following law changes on beneficial ownership of companies and taxation, Highway Registrars was tasked with linking the eCitizen accounts of Langton and its shareholders.
In the course of duty, Highway discovered that someone had infiltrated Langton’s eCitizen account and changed its ownership and directorship records.
The infiltration had seen two individuals – Josephine Chepkurui Maritim and Paul Kipkemoi Koech – listed as the new shareholders and directors.
On March 3, 2020, Highway wrote to the Business Registration Service (BRS) and requested for an investigation and rectification of the records. The changes were effected and Highway confirmed as much on April 16, 2020.
A year later, there was another infiltration but Highway caught it early and notified Langton.
The firm then instructed its lawyers at the time, MMC Asafo, to lodge a complaint with the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), and place a caveat on the 54-acre land if the infiltration was aimed at targeting its land, whose value had risen to at least Sh4 billion.
On July 7, 2023, Mr Kunyiha got a text message from someone who lives near the 54-acre land, seeking to confirm whether the property was really for sale.
The man sent two documents indicating that the land had been subdivided into six portions and was up for sale.
Mr Kunyiha and Langton instructed law firm Hamilton Harrison and Mathews (HHM) to investigate the goings-on, as there was no plan to sell the land.
“The plaintiff (Langton) confirmed that the property is in the process of being subdivided by way of a letter dated June 23, 2023 from the Director of Survey and Mapping. The letter indicated that the property had been subdivided into six new parcels," Mr Kunyiha says in a case Langton has filed against Meron Ltd, the Chief Land Registrar and the Director, Land Administration.
"We immediately instructed our advocates, Hamilton Harrison & Mathews to lodge a complaint with the DCI for investigation and to write to the Director of Survey to cancel the subdivisions,” he further says.
Langton also filed a complaint with the Director of Survey and Mapping, and the Chief Land Registrar.
Langton opted to fence the land, and hired Ollaro Electric Fencing Enterprise for the job. Ollaro employees got to the land on October 18, 2023.
As they were just getting down to work, a group of young men attacked them. Some workers were assaulted, with their valuables and equipment stolen.
Just 10 days later, Ollaro workers discovered that someone else had started putting up a fence around the land. Langton informed the DCI, whose officers arrested one individual. Others who were on site escaped.
On the same day, a lawyer called the DCI indicating that he was retained by Meron Ltd and would be representing the arrested individual. The lawyer, however, did not go to the DCI headquarters as he had indicated in the phone call.
Meron Ltd is owned by Anthony Wachira Njoroge and Peter Maina Mwangi. Stella Nyangate is listed as the company secretary. Langton’s advocates, HHM, wrote to the Institute of Certified Secretaries asking about Ms Nyangate’s status.
The institute said in a response that Ms Nyangate is not a registered certified secretary. As Meron had now declared that it was the other party staking a claim in the land’s ownership, Langton filed a case at the High Court against it.
Meron would also file a suit against Langton, but later withdrew the case. Meron has not filed a replying affidavit in the suit Langton filed, hence it is yet to state when or how it acquired the land. On November 14, Justice Edward Wabwoto ordered that both parties maintain the status quo.
A week later, the matter was back in court, and Langton revealed that Meron had started putting up structures on the land.
Justice Wabwoto then withdrew the status quo order, and instead blocked Meron from entering, selling, developing or dealing in the land in any way pending determination of the suit. On November 24, Meron applied for a review of the orders.
It claimed that it had the land, and that effecting the court order would be equal to an eviction, which is similar to a final decision and should not be granted before hearing of a case.
The firm insisted that its workers have been carrying on agricultural activities on the land. In its affidavits, Langton says that the agricultural activities have over the years been conducted by workers from neighbouring landowners and that they sought consent before planting crops on the land.
Meron also claimed that its advocate had mistakenly failed to make clear that its withdrawal of the suit filed against Langton was on condition that all parties maintain the status quo.
Justice Wabwoto, in December, ruled that no evidence had been placed before him to contradict the material he relied on when issuing the stop order against Meron.
The judge added that Meron’s lawyer did not file any affidavit stating that he had blundered by failing to insist on conditions for withdrawal of the suit against Langton.
Justice Wabwoto declined to review his orders on those grounds. The land was initially owned by former Internal Security Minister John Michuki and part of his vast real estate portfolio that includes the Windsor Hotel.
Michuki sold the 54-acre portion to the Kohlberg Foundation, which intended to help put up the first Starehe Girls Centre.
But things went awry with that plan, and the Kohlberg Foundation opted to sell the land. Langton, a firm owned by a group of businessmen led by Kunyiha and Githua, offered to purchase the land on condition that Kohlberg Foundation changes its designated use from educational to residential.
Kohlberg Foundation was unable to meet its end of the bargain, but this did not stop the deal as Langton Investments parted with the agreed Sh90 million price in June, 1999. And then everything went silent for over a decade.
In 2012, Langton successfully applied for a change of user from educational to residential. In 2022, the firm filed another change of user application from residential to mixed use.
The application was successful. On December 1, 2023 the Registrar of Titles revoked the six ownership documents issued to Meron, following an investigation that stemmed from Langton’s complaint.
The court case proceeds on April 6, 2024 when Justice Wabwoto will preside over a hearing.
