Elijah Ntongai, a journalist at TUKO.co.ke, has more than four years of financial, business, and technology research and reporting expertise, providing insights into Kenyan and global trends.

A Kisumu businessman, Fred Ogonji, is set to lose a prime piece of land valued at KSh 25 million after the Environment and Land Court ruled that the parcel was illegally allocated to him.

Justice Samson Okong’o of the Kisumu Environment and Land Court ordered the cancellation of the Certificate of Title for Kisumu Municipality Block 7/559 issued to the 1st defendant, Fred Ogonji.

"An order directing the Land Registrar Kisumu to rectify the register of the suit property by cancelling the registration of the 1st Defendant as the leasehold proprietor of all that property known as Kisumu Municipality/Block 7/559 and the certificate of lease that was issued to the 1st Defendant and restoring the property in the name of Kenya Railways Corporation as the leasehold proprietor thereof," read the judge's ruling in part.

The court upheld the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission’s (EACC) argument that the land belonged to Kenya Railways Corporation and was never available for private ownership.

EACC, in a post on X, explained that its investigations revealed that the 0.1116-hectare land was originally owned by the now defunct East African Railways and Harbors Administration.

The property was later transferred to Kenya Railways Corporation in 1986 through Legal Notice No. 24 of 1986.

However, in 1998, Ogonji was unlawfully allocated the land and was issued an allotment letter on October 12 of that year.

Two years later, in June 2000, the then commissioner of lands, Sammy Komen Mwaita, issued him a Certificate of Lease, finalising the illegal registration.

The anti-corruption body moved to court in 2009 under case number ELC/E39/2020, seeking to have the land title revoked. In his ruling, Justice Okong’o declared the Certificate of Lease issued to Ogonji fraudulent, illegal, and null and void, stating that public land cannot be allocated to private individuals.

EACC noted that this case is among many that are ongoing in its efforts to reclaim illegally acquired public property in Kisumu county.

The commission has successfully recovered several other key properties, including land belonging to Kisumu Law Courts, Kenya Railways (Kisumu Port), and the KIWASCO water treatment plant.

EACC noted that Kisumu has been a hotspot for land grabbing cases and that it is actively pursuing the recovery of assets worth over KSh 4 billion still tied up in legal battles.

In other news, EACC successfully reclaimed a 0.0492-hectare piece of public land near Mombasa State House.

The judge ruled that the land was fraudulently acquired by former Mombasa district officer Edward Mwangi with the help of ex-commissioner of Lands Wilson Gachanja.

Mwangi later sold the land to Minalove Hotel and Restaurant Limited, which unknowingly used it as collateral for a loan from Equity Bank.

The EACC filed a lawsuit in 2015, leading to a ruling by Justice Nelly Matheka of the Mombasa Environment and Land Court, who declared the land was never available for private ownership.

The court canceled all fraudulent titles, ordered the land’s return to the government, and issued an injunction against the hotel’s use of the property.

Source: TUKO.co.ke