Land Curse: Poor widow harassed by land grabbers to her grave over property worth billions

Powerful land grabbers will stop at nothing, including kidnapping and murder.

Beatrice Syokau Kathumba, whose body is lying at the Machakos Funeral Home as her close relatives walk from one office to another seeking justice and the right to lay their kin to rest, could be enjoying her sunset years if she wasn’t a landowner.

The 89-year-old granny was kidnapped, held in captivity for years and dumped in hospital when her health deteriorated. It is chilling that a year after her death, people suspected to have grabbed most of her 48-hectare land have prevented her burial unless they are recognised through proxies as the de facto beneficiaries of the prime property estimated to run into billions of shillings.

Now, in an interesting twist, Syokau’s family claims two senior police detectives connived with speculators to disinherit them of the land stretching from SDV Transami to City Cabanas Hotel and extending to Kyangombe slums, off Mombasa Road.

Syokau’s daughters, Litha Kathumba and Amina Mbula Kathumba, accuse top Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) officials of protecting land wheeler-dealers and frustrating investigations into abduction, forgery and fraud. Both detectives, whom we cannot name for legal reasons, have, however dismissed the allegations. They say those are lies perpetuated by a city private detective who is being investigated for kidnapping and impersonating a police officer.

Held hostage

Litha and Amina say most of the current occupants on the land acquired it fraudulently as their mother unsuccessfully tried to have them evicted before her death.

Syokau was detained by unknown people for close to four years before she eventually died on July 3, 2014.  Relatives later learnt that the matriarch had been held incommunicado in a house at Imara estate allegedly belonging to a police officer. Two men (names withheld) who took her to Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) on June 22, 2014 after her health deteriorated, abandoned her there.

She died a few days later and since then, the family has been unable to bury her because of a rival group enjoying the backing of government officials and the son of a prominent political family in Athi River. The last time they attempted to bury Syokau at her Mathunya home, Mitaboni Location in Machakos County, hired goons disrupted the function, forcing mourners to flee as the hoodlums demolished two houses. Three suspects have been charged in connection with the incident.

Also sucked into the intricate protracted land saga is Jane Mugo, the proprietor of Trimo Security and Investigations. She was approached by Syokau’s children last year to help them reclaim the land, which was acquired by their late father John Kathumba Makuthi.

On May 14, 2015, she was arrested by detectives and accused of kidnapping and extortion, charges she dismisses as fabrications. She blames two senior police officers, whom she alleges are interested parties in the land under investigation, for her woes.

But both officers said they had no knowledge of the land dispute and maintain that Mugo is a police imposter. Sought for comment, one of the officers challenged Syokau’s relatives to contact him if they were in need of help over the land dispute.

“There are some things you have to be very careful (about). I don’t know and I have never seen them (Syokau’s relatives). I am not involved in such things (land grabbing). It has never crossed my mind,” stated the top cop.

This conflict has a long history. On April 13, 2007, then Embakasi District Officer Mohammed Hassan wrote to the commissioner of lands indicating that the land, registration number 7149/9, belonged to the Kathumba family.

“The above parcel of land belongs to Beatrice Syokau Kathumba. Most of the parcel of land has been grabbed by some people where the police are investigating. I suggest that the remaining piece of land be in her name and a tittle deed issued respectively. Please assist accordingly,” stated the letter.

Earlier, Embakasi DCIO Alex Ndambu arrived at the same conclusion in a letter addressed to the Commissioner of Lands. He said most of the land had been grabbed, advising that the remaining intact parcel should be registered in the name of Syokau and the illegal encroachers evicted.

“After carrying out the investigations in this matter, I have interrogated various people in this issue as well as processing several documents regarding this land. I have found out that this land belongs to Beatrice Syokau Kathumba,” concluded Ndambu.

Accusing fingers

The Kathumba family believes Mugo is being intimidated to drop investigations she is conducting on their behalf after they lost faith in government agencies.

One of the senior officers dismissed them saying: “I don’t know anything about the shamba (land). I think Jane Mugo is using those people to divert attention from what she is facing (investigations). But she will have to go to court for impersonation. Let her defend herself in court, she has no choice.”

But the private investigator says the three people accusing her of kidnapping were the same she investigated following complaints of infidelity and obtaining money through false pretense. One is a city businessman, the other a female lawyer and the third is an Asian man who conned a personal assistant of an MP from Narok County some money, she says.

The businessman was caught in March by Central Police Station officers in the wee hours of the night having sex in his car with a married police corporal along a street in the CBD. The two were taken to the station, but were not booked because it was a “small civil matter.”

Through gazette notice number 6638 of 2014, the two daughters of Syokau sought to be granted letters of administration of the land, which they insist their father, a cook at the infamous Kapenguria Prison, bought from a relocating European settler, Laura Ellen Woodley. They claimed their father prepared food for the late President Jomo Kenyatta and freedom fighters Bildad Kaggia, Kung’u Karumba, Fred Kubai, Paul Ngei and Achieng’ Oneko during their seven-year incarceration at the jail.

Upon quitting his job at the dawn of independence, Kathumbi moved to Nairobi and used his savings to buy the land, which was registered as 7075/3 with an expiry term dated July 1, 2916. Unfortunately, by the time of his demise in 1989, he had not transferred the tittle to his name.

His wife initiated the transfer process but was given a fake title, which the granny realised much later and reported the matter to Embakasi police in October, 2006. Since then, investigations have dragged on, taking turns and twists until she passed in mysterious circumstances.

“Some of the grabbers attempted to sell part of the land to KAA (Kenya Airports Authority) for Sh3 billion, but the transaction stalled when Chairman Martin Wambora, now Embu Governor, realised that the sellers were not genuine owners,” says Litha, who now wants adequate security to bury their mother.