The poor millionaires of Nairobi’s Embakasi Ranching Company

It is now 51 years since Embakasi Ranching Company Limited was started by the founding father of the Nation Mzee Jomo Kenyatta as a horticulture and dairy farming venture, but principally as a bus to help peasants from Central region get a pie of freedom land.

Mzee Kenyatta had teamed up with his cronies like Njenga Karume and then Nairobi legislator Muhuri Muchiri to consolidate swathes of land in Nairobi, Machakos and Kajiado counties.

By 1978 when Mzee Kenyatta died, the scheme had seen them pool together more than 30,000 acres of land.

It owns about 17, 000 acres of land in Nairobi’s Ruai area and about 800 more acres in Kitengela, Ngong’ and Syokimau.

A share worth Sh1,100 carried a promise of owning five acres but was later reviewed down to be a plot measuring 200 by 200 feet.

Read also: We were disposed of our land

In 2021, Cytonn Investment Company estimated Embakasi lands to be worth more than 2.7 trillion, with an acre retailing at Sh71 million. Such value aroma for the Embakasi lands has now bred many crooks out to acquire property at minimum pain, picking on the ranch’s aged, the poor, the illiterate and the semiliterate for ruthless dispossession.

Today, the ranch is a collective narration of sad stories of disillusioned elderly shareholders some in their late 90s, many others who died waiting and thousands of their descendants queuing to get title deeds, as government wheeler-dealers in high offices and powerful institutions weather accusations of protecting the thieves.

So far, four chairmen who have served the ranch since inception have died, coincidentally of heart attacks.

Mr Muhuri Muchiri died in 2006, Mr Kariuki Mwaganu in 2009, Mr Mwangi Thuita in 2018 and Mr James Njoroge died on August 26,2023.

Ms Phideli Wangari currently serves as fifth chair.

Read Also: Secret Title deeds missing, forced evictions

The company has been in more than five decades with former employees of Juja Sisal Farm Limited. It all started in 1978, when Edward Itindi, the then farm manager of Juja Sisal Farm Limited, and the then Embakasi MP Muhuri Muchiri – both now deceased – acting on behalf of the former employees of the company, handed over the original title deed and list of employees to the government.

Other important documents from Sir Wigum, the then-owner of Juja Sisal Farm Limited, included the employer's self-declaration letter on compensation to employees and the letter of surrender for subdivision and issuance of title deeds.

“The late Muchiri, who had been trusted by the former employees and Mr Itindi to push for the subdivision of the land at the Ministry of Lands, instead betrayed us and constituted Embakasi Ranching Company Limited with some other people who had been living on the farm.

These included the first chief of the area – Stephen Githika Gachie – Joseph Wairegi and others who termed themselves 'squatters' on the said land," said Mr Peter Sakala, chairperson of the Ex-Ranching Employees Self-Help Group in Njiru, a lobby group for former workers of Juja Sisal Farm and their survivors.

What has followed is years of court battles and harassment of former employees of Juja Sisal Farm. “they sold our livestock, encroached on our land, and enforced unlawful fees where quarrying was taking place,” notes Mr Sakala.

As the dispute over the vast Ruai land continues, most of the former employees of Juja Sisal Farm Limited have died, leaving their children and grandchildren without formal title deeds.

Here are lamentations of the elderly’s 51-year wait for title deeds.

Michael Gitau, 85

He became a member in 1973 when he bought two shares that guaranteed him 10 acres of land at a cost of Sh2,200.

However, the allocation of land formula was revised in 1983 when a share was reduced to a plot of 100 by 100 feet and a bonus of the same measure.

Today, he is demanding to be given title deed for land measuring 200 by 200 feet equivalent to two shares.

“Unfortunately land grabbers brimming with money and drunk with power have ensured that I’m still waiting to be titled. Embakasi Ranching Company shares have become a permanent component of wills where we pass over the waiting to our children,” he says.

Patrick Ng’ang’a, 77

He says that what is happening in Embakasi Ranching is a crude mafia like governance, where government is abetting dispossession of land belonging to “the dying voters so as to give it to future voters as enticement”.

He said the government should be blamed for collapsed sanity in land governance in the country.

“The politics of patronage where land has to be sought so as to bribe allies and entice others to join your cause is the one costing us. Embakasi lands have been stolen under the nose of government without it sniffing, simply because the thieves are friends of the government,” he said.

He said some past directors formed an alliance with the thieves and all became crooks who partnered in defining the persistent pain for the shareholders.

Lucia Mwathi, 73

She remembers taking a Sh3,000 loan to purchase two shares in 1974 when her salary was Sh800 per month. Despite surviving getting auctioned, she managed to offset that loan in 1987 where plus interest and default penalties she paid Sh14,000.

“I urge President William Ruto and his deputy Rigathi Gachagua to save us from this titling circus. Help us overcome cartels that delay titling as they steal our land. We have fallen prey to land grabbers since our land has appreciated in value astronomically where an acre is offered for Sh70 million,” she said.

To Mr Gachagua, she says “In order to be crowned the Mt Kenya kingpin, go beyond the politics and get us title deeds”.

Njenga Kamumu, 73

He bought three shares in 1976. What distresses him is how the Judiciary has been used over the intervening period to block free flowing titling drive so as to assure Embakasi shareholders of justice.

“The Judiciary has become a strange shop… The perception that it is solely to blame for this long wait and the perception that it sells justice to the highest bidder is very strong,” he says.

He adds: “People who were never shareholders have walked into court-houses and won orders to forcibly occupy our land. The land cartels know that we are poor and when they drag us into courts, we become minced meat… nothing short of radical surgery of the courts will suffice to get our titles in this lifetime.”

David Mbuuri, 90

A retired teacher, he says he acquired two shares in 1972 after listening to Mzee Jomo Kenyatta articulate how Kenyans would in future live in comfort.

“And he had a great foresight… it was good advice. If I had acquired the 10 acres that initially the two shares equated, I would today be Sh700 million richer in assets today,” he said.

He adds that when the share allocation was revised to a 200 by 200ft plot, and he were given a title deed, he would be about Sh40 million richer today. “Problem is that some of our directors have been selling off our shares or allocating them to others hence creating confusion and conflict,” he said.

Patrick Kariuki, 75

He says most initial shareholders were either illiterate or semi-literate “and land grabbers, deceitful directors and wheeler-dealers have taken advantage of the same to manipulate the share register.”

In his lifetime, he has attended more than 300 meetings to agitate for title deeds “but the investment dream that we had in mind has turned out to be our retirement misery”.

He says that when he acquired three shares, he had dreamt of owning 15 acres of land to develop.

“I dared to dream of selling off part of it and build an industrial hub. The dream has turned out to be a fairy-tale of the absurd,” he said.

Mwangi Wamai, 96

He says the world should use Kenya to formulate international laws to fight land grabbing.

“Kenya should also serve as inspiration on how to cruelly treat elderly investors since the delay to title us has seen the average age of our original shareholders to be 77,” he says.

He asks the government: “How longer do you intend to keep me waiting for my title deed? Aren’t you concerned from seeing me carry medication to your offices as I beg to be titled?”

Joseph Ndung’u, 81

He remembers being beaten up by police officers and hired goons while attending protests to claim his title deed.

“After being beaten up by colonialists while agitating for self-rule, freedom comes and police officers the age of my grandsons beat me up while backed up by hired goons,” he said.

He blasted the government of gross negligence for failing to respect private property and guard it from encroachment by thugs.

“Some of government officers have asked me why I need land at my advanced age and how I still harbour a dream that my Sh3,300 that I parted with in 1973 for three shares can today earn me a plot in Nairobi.”

Samuel Kimotho, 81

He says he is tired of attending to countless meetings to beg for his rightful share of land. “Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua is fond of saying that this is a government of shareholders where you get your rightful share… He should come to Embakasi and help the shareholders in it get their rightful share,” he said.

He says the solution is for the Ministry of Lands to partner with the ranch’s directors to clean the share register by ridding it of grabbers.

“We have over 20,000 disputes. Some of the shareholders’ lands have been developed and fenced off… Even some very powerful people in the country have grabbed…We need prayers, boldness to demand for our rights and governance that gets concerned about this impunity we are experiencing,” he says.

Hellen Wambui, 70

She says that the list of those who have grabbed Embakasi lands contains who’s who in power.

“We have been getting these names through our educated sons and daughters working in government offices. There are those in security, in high positions of leadership, politicians, tycoons, drug barons and even foreigners using proxies,” she said.

She said that “the comic relief in the corruption therein is that “there are thieves who in turn encountered greater thieves and they are tussling in courts”.

She says “it is ridiculous to hear that your own piece of land is the subject of a court dispute between two or more people not related to you”.

Wanjiru Gatheca, 72

She says lack of leadership integrity in past board of director’s offices has resulted in some shareholders even losing evidence of their claim to land.

She says she has witnessed court rulings that have dispossessed some shareholders who had accompanied her to buy the shares in 1974.

“It is painful to know that I was the witness when they purchased their shares only to be told by the courts in 2017 that they were squatters to be evicted,” she said.

Her message to the Judiciary: “The reputation and honour of the judiciary is on the cross from such shenanigans… Kenyans are not entirely stupid. These old shareholders you are condemning have learned and educated children who actively follow the orders you grant and rulings you make” dispossessing rightful land owners to reward charlatans.

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