A powerful Mombasa tycoon Abubakar Joho has reduced senior officers from Interior and National government Co-ordination ministry in Mombasa county to mere night guards, guarding a 60- acre piece of land currently at the centre of a dispute between him and squatters at Nguu Tatu area of Kisauni sub-county. The government officials have been spotted day and night supervising a nine feet perimeter wall under construction around the plot intended to maroon squatters living on the disputed parcels of land identified as Plot-Nos 324, 817, 818 and 819/ all of section 11/MN CR No 30412.
The 3000 squatters accuse senior government officers claimed to be on the tycoon’s payroll through a private firm, of intimidating and threatening them with unwarranted arrests. They have been using police to harass and arrest the squatters on the property without any cause and disallowing them from making any complaints at Kiembeni Police Station in Bamburi, according to sources. Among those said to be on the payroll to make sure the law favours their master include the area Kisauni security team and a local chief alleged to be working with a few who have fallen into the businessman’s trap to frustrate their fellow squatters, according to the letter seen by Weekly Citizen.
Report has it that the Kisauni- Nguu Tatu residents were fighting it out with the tycoon who is a brother of Mombasa governor Hassan Joho and is alleged to be hiding behind Bandari Investments Co Ltd, a firm involved directly in the land dispute, to achieve his selfish goal of taking over the land ownership.
Hassan Joho
Sources privy with the prolonged land ownership wrangles say Abu, as he is popularly known, has a vast interest in dominating the county’s politics and economy, and had used a group of squatters known to be loyal to him to side with Bandari Investment Co Ltd and ensure he gets the land despite court orders restraining the firm from utilizing the land until the dispute is settled. On September 26, 2019, a High Court in Mombasa directed that the parties were at liberty to engage the National Land Commission and Department of Land Adjudication and Settlement, to see if and whether the matter could be settled out of court, but nothing has since been achieved following persistent interference from the businessman.
The tycoon’s strong appetite for the land has even reached a point where he would sponsor squatters to sacrifice slaughtered goats on the plot in attempts to win the land, according to a source. More than 40 black goats allegedly donated by him were slaughtered in a sacrificial ritual said to have been done on monthly basis since 2016 and carried out by two former leaders of the squatters namely a one Chiponda, Kalama and a one Ndoro, a village elder-cum-informer. “This person boasts of bagging both the regional administration and judiciary and he has been using some of the squatters under his payroll to turn to witchcraft, in which over 40 black goats and chickens have been slaughtered at night within the 60-acre piece of land in beliefs that all marooned squatters would wake up one day and move out to pave way for him to own the land.” Sometimes in 2016, officials of the Nguu Tatu Residents Group were summoned by then the Mombasa county land CEC, Anthony Njaramba, who tricked them that they were being called for a joint meeting with Bandari Investments Co Ltd, according to one squatter who attended the meeting.
But instead of meeting, the representatives of the company claiming to have bought the disputed land, the then land CEC informed them that he was “the Bandari Investment Co Ltd” representative and proceeded to convince the officials of the Nguu Tatu squatters to accept a reward of Sh26 million from his bosses to enable them and other squatters leave the plot in peace. Meanwhile, the squatters through their leaders John Shauri, wrote a letter in June 2020 to Uhuru Kenyatta seeking his protection against what they claimed to be historical land injustice perpetuated by wealthy land grabbers known to use few corrupt and selfish senior government officials from Fred Matiang’i’s ministry to achieve their selfish goals.
Abu Joho
“Your excellence, we have great fear we may not get justice in our dispute battle, hence we seek your intervention for a permanent solution since we are already settled despite constant threats which we believe from this letter, we are sure will cease” says the letter. The letter added that Bandari Investments Co Ltd purporting to have bought the land from Hussein Dairy in 2012 came to the property in 2015 and violently sought to evict them, and in the process broke the legs of one of their colleagues and destroyed properties. “On June 8, 2018, the police under the command of the OCPD Kisauni and OCS Nyali Police Station descended on us at Nguu Tatu on plots Nos 324, 817, 817 and 819 all of section 11/MN, and demolished over 50 residential structures, two primary schools, church and mosques, rendering all the occupants of the demolished homeless,” the squatters added in the letter. The angry squatters have been in dispute also with trustees of Hussein Dairy which comprises Mahmood Kassam, Jaffer Kassam, Esmail Kassam, Musa Kassam, and Essak Kassam, people claimed to have illegally sold the land to the tycoon through Bandari Investment Ltd.
They say their efforts to claim the land ownership have been thwarted by the current elected leaders in the county whom they also accuse of being reluctant and unwilling to address the perennial squatter problem which affects mostly the indigenous Mijikenda community. According to Bandari Investments Co Ltd, they bought the land legally and procedurally from Hussein Dairy and that they have no connection with the said tycoon, a statement disputed by squatters. The squatters claim that the Hussein Dairy’s parents and grandparents had only then settled in a four-acre piece of land which they acquired from a white settler who left Kenya soon after independence in the early 1960s. However, Bandari Investments Co Ltd on April 7 2020 started building a house which they claim was a store on the suit property, contrary to court orders which allowed them to only build a perimeter wall, not beyond two feet from the ground.
-Citizen Weekly.
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