We need your magic too, Nyeri cries out to Charity Ngilu over land cases

NYERI COUNTY: When the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission charged a senior Nyeri land registrar and five of her juniors last year, there was hope among locals that the rot in the county’s lands office would finally be cleaned up.

Victims who had lost land to fraudsters working in cahoots with corrupt officers hoped they would soon recover their property. But a year later, locals are still losing land to fraudsters, working with rogue land officials and crafty lawyers.

Agnes Wangu, the former senior registrar, was charged alongside her deputy Beatrice Wairimu, clerical officers Andrew Wanderi and Immaculate Njoki, and typist Cecilia Wangui with conspiracy to commit fraud.

The five had allegedly conspired with an official from the Nyeri Revenue Office to circumvent a caution on a parcel of land, which they transferred from Papius Mathenge to Jean Mathenge between September 15, 2010 and August 15, 2011.

Although the five officers are still on suspension as the suit has not yet been concluded, internal cartels at the lands office are still defrauding innocent Kenyans.

Sacrificial lambs

The ideal picture of land fraud in Nyeri is probably best portrayed by the high number of litigants flocking the Nyeri Environment and Land Court on various succession and land cases, most of whose details find their way to the Lands office.

A staffer at the Nyeri land bureau told The Standard on Sunday that junior staff are merely used as sacrificial lambs when deals backfire. “Why would you charge a typist for making an entry on a land title based on instructions from the senior?” posed the staffer.

She claimed even drivers are assigned typing duties at the land’s office, posing questions on the transparency of deals undertaken. In the past, there have been cases where contentious parcels of land have had two titles registered to different owners.

For instance, in 2012, Geoffrey Gitonga identified two plots measuring 50 by 100 feet each at Nairutia in Nyeri County, which were on sale. After conducting a search on the land, Gitonga entered a sale agreement with the owner Joyce Wambui, who he reportedly paid Sh400,000 as the deposit payment for the Sh500,000 sale price. Months later, Wambui discovered the land had been fraudulently transferred to a third party, allegedly through a person working within the Nyeri lands office. The case is still under police investigation.

Another common practice is where parcels are transferred even when there is a court injunction restraining any transactions on the land. A case in point is a suit over a parcel of land belonging to former spy Francis Muriuki Wahome, who went on to dispose of plots in his sprawling ranch at Lusoi near Narumoru despite a court order restraining the same.

In the suit dismissed by the Nyeri High Court after the ailing spy died on April 19, 2012, Muriuki’s six children had claimed the family patriarch had also transferred a price beach plot in Malindi to his youngest wife Rose Mumbi Muriuki before the same was sold off to an Italian investor.

On the Narumoru ranch, Joseph Bao, the then Nyeri District land registrar, produced 62 green cards for plots carved out of the contentious 125-hectare farm despite caveats and court orders. The registrar said documents at the registry showed most of the new blocks had since been transferred to other parties, some which formed the 34 interested parties in the court case. “Even as this case is pending, some of our father’s properties have been disposed off,” said 53-year-old James Gicheru, one of the spy’s sons who had filed the suit. The suit was dismissed when Muriuki died.

Ownership change

Like most of Central Kenya, Nyeri has land that is fully surveyed and demarcated. This implies that most scams take place during change of ownership and on public utility land. Nyeri lawyer Kebuka Wachira, a former Nyeri land registrar, said the issue of missing land files or sneaked out blank land titles can only be blamed on a registrar -– who is the custodian -– or the person he or she leaves to hold brief for him in absentia. “The land record system, though seemingly analogue, was very elaborate. There is no way a parcel of land can have two titles if the entry of transfer has been put in a land’s green book,” he said.

But Wahome Gikonyo, a lawyer in Nyeri, exonerated the lands office from blame. “Land is a scarce resource and Kenyans are known to employ underhand tactics to lay their hands on wealth,” said Mr Gikonyo.

He said the best solution to the widespread land corruption lies in increasing the number of High Court judges to expedite the adjudication process. Gikonyo gave the example of Nyeri Law Court where Environment and Land diary is full by June every year, with the suits filed thereafter being slated for hearing in the subsequent year.

“The problem with this slow exercise of justice is that people get weary and lose hope and that’s how they are defrauded of their land,” he said.

But other professionals and residents say they are eagerly awaiting Ngilu’s magic. “While the Lands minister has been very proactive and has singled out Nairobi, Kiambu, Thika, Mombasa and several other registries as the centre of corruption, we wonder why she has given Nyeri such a wide berth,” says a prominent Nyeri lawyer, who confesses he was perturbed by the level of scam, especially in the tenure of a former station head.

Speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of antagonising colleagues, he claims whereas it was a taboo for “learned colleagues” to participate in land fraud up to the 1990s, lawyers now engage in the same without batting an eyelid.

“There is even one who engaged in conveyancing while his practicing license had been cancelled and clearly knowing that the deal he was participating in was outright fraud. Surprisingly, he faces no charges in court even after he was locked in after testifying in a dispute involving this transaction,” he adds.