AG now defends registrar's mistake on hospital land

The office of the Attorney General has defended an irregularity by former Nakuru Land Registrar Eric Nyamu that saw War Memorial Hospital closed over alleged irregular lease renewal.

Senior State Counsel Prisca Adomeyon submitted before Nyandaura’s Environment and Land Court Joseph Mugo, that despite alleged irregularity, Nyamu acted with good intentions. The hospital, standing on a 25-acre prime land in Milimani, Nakuru, was shut down by the County Government of Nakuru on January 23, 2024, and has not been reopened.

In his testimony, Nyamu had confirmed that he tried to cancel the hospital’s lease without legal authority or jurisdiction, in order to correct an error he had allegedly made earlier. 

Nyamu admitted that he gazetted the lease title as lost on May 19, 2023, though it was an illegality, in order to protect his office from any land fraud among other irregularities on the subject land.

Yesterday, Adomeyon defended Nyamu and urged the court to dismiss any claims against him. “The land registrar said that he attempted to correct an error, by canceling the lease renewal entry at the offices,” she submitted.

Despite noting that Nyamu had no authority to correct the error, Adomeyon urged the court to find that he did it with good faith and without malice. Asked if allowing land registrars to correct errors illegally would be wise, Adomeyon admitted that the same would cause chaos nationally.