Mama Ngina wants land case thrown out

Former First Lady Mama Ngina Kenyatta wants the court to throw out a suit where she has been accused of grabbing land belonging to a relative.

A brother to founding President Mzee Kenyatta, Peter Muigai Ngengi has moved to court accusing Mama Ngina of grabbing his three-and-a-half acres at Ichaweri in Gatundu, Kiambu County.

Mr Ngengi through Lawyer Stanley Wandaka told the High Court that the respondents in the suit had approached him, seeking to have the matter settled out of court but he declined.

Mr Wandaka told the court that Mama Ngina had delivered building materials on the land occupied by Ngengi and had promised to build him a house if he withdrew the case.

While opposing an objection filed by Mama Ngina seeking to have the suit thrown out, Ngengi in a sworn affidavit claimed that the Kenyatta family grabbed his land in an effort to expand theirs.

All-powerful president

Asked why he had filed the case 34 years after the death of his brother, Ngengi said he had been afraid to demand the land during previous regimes due to the then existing law which provided for an all-powerful president.

Ngengi, who filed the suit in 2012, said Kenyatta and other relatives had lived harmoniously on their ancestral land when their father was still alive as he had warned them against land encroachment and shifting boundaries.

He added that when their father died things changed and even before he was buried, the beacons dividing his farm and that of Kenyatta were allegedly uprooted. Mama Ngina wants Ngengi’s petition thrown out on grounds that it had been filed out of time.

The court will rule on the objection raised on February 2.