Man regains land he lost 29 years ago

By MURIMI MWANGI

An illiterate man who lost his land to a high school teacher, who tricked him to thumb print a sale agreement, has repossessed his land 29 years later.

This follows a verdict by the Court of Appeal in Nyeri that certified him as the legitimate owner of the land, after a court battle spanning close to three decades.

M’itaru M’thakarai lost 2.8 acres of land on March 2, 1984, after he was duped into thumb printing the fake agreement written in Kimeru language.

Since then, he has been embroiled in a protracted court battle to repossess his land from Stephen Ikiao, a secondary school deputy principal he claimed conned him.

Interestingly, Ikiao was the first one to move to court in March 1992 claiming ownership of the contentious parcel of land, claiming he had legitimately bought it.

He said he had paid M’thakarai Sh7,500 in total for the purchase, pursuant to the vernacular sale agreement that the two had allegedly endorsed in 1984.

Ikiao settled on the contentious land almost immediately and even planted crops, before moving to court later in 1992, to validate the occupation.

In protest, M’thakarai filed a parallel suit at the Chief Magistrate’s Court in Meru, asking the court to evict Ikiao from the land, “for unlawfully occupying his property for several years without his consent”.

The two suits were later consolidated, heard and determined by High Court Judge Justice Mary Kasango.

In the case, M’thakarai told Justice Kasango, the vernacular agreement that was read out to him indicated that he was exchanging 2.8 acres of his land with Ikiao’s 3 acres.

He denied taking any money from the latter as payment for the contentious parcel of land.

The form indicated that M’thakarai had agreed to sell his entire 7.3 acres for Sh15, 000 and that he had already received Sh7,500 for 2.8 acres of the land.

Appellate Judges Lady Justice Martha Koome, and Justices Otieno Odek and Alnashir Visram, dismissed the appeal on grounds that Ikiao had not proved that he legitimately acquired the piece of land.