Retired chief charged with forgery of court documents in land row

By WILLIS OKETCH

Mariakani, Kenya: A retired assistant chief has been charged with forgery of judiciary documents in a case involving two families that have since 1977 been locked in a dispute over 2,338 acres of land at Mariakani.

The case involves the extended family of Madzayo Mangale verses that of Mumba Chome.

Andrew Mwinzangu was charged before Senior Principal Magistrate Richard Odenyo after police found out that he had presented forged proceedings and judgments.

He has been charged together with headman Rumba Nyamayi who is on the run.

Mwinzangu is out on a bond of Sh300,000 while a warrant of arrest has been issued against his accomplice Nyamayi.

Justice Samuel Mukhunya ordered investigations on documents presented by both sides before court, which lead to discoveries of suspected forgeries that implicated the retired chief and his former headman.

Mwinzangu, who recently retired from the civil service after 30 years of service as Mitsangoni sub-location assistant chief, is suspected to have forged the proceeding in which a Kaloleni District Magistrate gave a judgment in his favour in case number 26 of 1977.

“It has been a long journey since I took over the case from my late father Mumba Chome who won the case against Madzayo Mangale family in 1982,” said Ngala Chome, 77,

Before the case started, Ngala recalls how Mangale’s family sued his late father Mumba Chome in 1977 at Kaloleni, laying claim to 2,338 acres of land at Mariakani.

Ngala has sued Mangale’s family seeking orders to stop them from interfering with their land.

He has also sued Ketraco power company for grabbing 200 acres from the family land.

Ngala has, however, said his family has no problem with the power firm if it compensates them at market rate.

The case was previously presided by two separate magistrate’s court that ruled differently in favour of both.

The retired chief belongs to the Madzayo Mangale family.

The first magistrate ruled in favour of the assistant chief’s family on November 8, 1977, ordering the rival family to vacate the land and pay costs.

The aggrieved Chome’s family subsequently filed an appeal in the Mombasa High Court in 1978, complaining that the first magistrate PJ Mwangulu, who sat at Kaloleni courts, was related to the Madzayo Mangale family.

In the appeal, lawyers representing the two parties agreed that the case should be heard afresh before a different magistrate in Mombasa.

The new case began in 1982 before C.M Randu, the then District Magistrate in Mombasa when a Mr Mchomba Mangale, the son of Madzayo Mangale, replaced him as a plaintiff against Mumba Chome’s family.

Randu ruled in favour of the Chomes in 1982, prompting an appeal by the Mangales. The appeal launched in 1982 was heard by Senior Resident Magistrate Ngachak Gakui who ruled in 1983 in favour of the Chomes and ordered that the Mangales pay costs of Sh32,260.10.

The matter appeared to have died down only to erupt in 2011 when Ketraco acquired the disputed land under unclear conditions.