Weston Hotel land along Langata Road next to Wilson Airport is set to be reverted back to the government that is if the court rules in favour of Kenya Civil Aviation Authority, that claims absolute ownership. Sources say that the state will take over ownership just the way it did with Grand Regency Hotel then owned by Kamlesh Pattni after it won the protracted battle that also involved Central Bank of Kenya. As things stand, Kenya Commercial Bank is currently in custody of the land title deed after the hotel, was used as collateral to get millions of shillings. Already, the deputy president is in court fighting to save Weston Hotel from being demolished by the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority. Two years ago, the National Land Commission ruled that Ruto pays KCAA Sh210m for the land where Weston Hotel is built after it was established that the prime land was grabbed. KCAA, however, declined the NLC’s decision and asked the court to allow it to demolish the Weston Hotel and repossess its land as opposed to being compensated for a fraudulent grab.
Last week, the deputy president suffered a major economic blow after the government repossessed 1,600 acre piece of land in Ruai, Nairobi, which he took possession in the 1990s and registered it using proxies. The land was earmarked for Nairobi sewerage plant. Ruto acquired the land using Renton Company Limited through Kenneth Boit and Patrick Osero, both of YK 92 operatives. Other names that are featuring include that of Susan Ndung’u, John Nyumu, cousin of senate majority leader Kipchumba Murkomen’s wife and Delstar Investment which has the DP’s cousin as the main shareholder. There are also reports linking media personality Julie Gichuru and her husband, Tony, who is son of former Kenya Power managing director, Samuel Gichuru, to the land grab. The couple is suspected to be Ruto’s proxies in local betting companies. At the height of the Weston Hotel saga, Ruto could not publicly claim ownership and instead used a personal friend and aide, Patrick Osero as the owner of the disputed. Langata Primary School claims the land belongs to it. It must be remembered that primary schools pupils were teargassed and injured in the stampede when they protested against the grabbing of the land.
Osero is Ruto’s business partner, who is the head of Renton Company Limited that was building a complex on the Ruai land. Caught pants down, the directors are now moving to court to challenge the demolitions. This is the land that the late Jacob Juma had gone to court so as to have it reverted back to public. Juma had filed a case to reclaim the land grabbed by Renton Company which is believed to be owned by the deputy president but registered under the names of proxies. Aware of the political ramifications of the suit, Juma had gone out of his way to explain the background of the suit, attesting that it is the duty of citizens to protect embezzling of public utilities by individuals for private gain. Juma wanted the court to declare the rights of Nairobi residents to a clean environment had been threatened as the grabbed land was earmarked for construction of a sewer. The petition was filed and certified urgent by Justice Weldon Korir with inter-parties hearing set for February 26 2015. But before it could proceed, Juma was threatened and before his murder he tweeted that Ruto was obsessed about killing him. According to an investigative piece aired by KTN’s Jicho Pevu, six killings with reported links to the investigation into the murder of Juma added to the mystery of his killings. The first was of Cameron Chase Huntler, boyfriend of Sally Jirongo, daughter of former Lugari MP Cyrus Jirongo who was shot dead while walking to a mall in Kilimani, Nairobi.
When Cameron succumbed to his injuries, Sally called her father, Jirongo, the former YK 92 boss who later said the killing would have passed off as a normal robbery gone wrong until his daughter received a text message a few days later warning her to keep quiet. The former lawmaker said he believed the message was not meant for his daughter but him. Jirongo had captured national headlines when he claimed highranking government officials were behind the murder of Juma. The former Lugari MP later said the killing of Cameron mirrored the cold-blooded murder of four other people whom police claimed were behind Juma’s murder. Later, a man who allegedly delivered a letter on Juma’s murder to activist Boniface Mwangi was arrested. Douglas Nyakundi, who claimed he worked at the DP’s office and delivered a letter with a confession on how the murder was planned and executed, was found to be a con. At the time Ruto had sued Mwangi over a tweet linking him to Juma’s death. The DP had termed the activist’s claim as “scandalous and injured his reputation”. But Mwangi’s lawyers, Gitobu Imanyara and Company, wrote to Ruto’s team saying he would not apologise for the tweet, and challenged him to proceed to court.
Former Lugari MP Cyrus Jirongo
Back to Renton, the firm was granted a contract to develop a sewer treatment plant on Nairobi City Council 3000 hectares land in 1996. But less than an hour after the contract was given out, the ministry of Lands transferred the ownership of the land to the same company. The land value is estimated to be Sh25 billion. Osero has featured prominently as nominees in other shadowy companies where he has been a representative of Ruto. Another killing related to the land occurred on September 27 2014, when Onesmus Mutinda, who was a surveyor in Ruai, was killed on the Ruiru Bypass. His crime, according to the displaced people some of whom were occupying parcels of the land, was questioning the ownership of the 1,600-acre parcel, which by then was occupied by the IDPs. To date, the squatters claim they were given the land by the former City Council of Nairobi. “He got a call to go and receive some money on Kiambu Road not knowing that it was a trap,” one of his friends said. Unknown men driving in two cars sped to the side of Mutinda’s car, pushed it to the roadside and sprayed him with bullets before speeding away towards Ruiru. Former president Daniel Moi granted the Nairobi City Council the Ruai land on a 99-year lease on February 1 1996. The grant was then registered on April 12, 1996. Renton acquired the land from the City Council on the same day.
-Citizen Weekly.
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