DP Ruto’s ally Hon Kimani Ngunjiri in yet another land grabbing scandal

By Nephat Kinyua

Controversial and cantankerous Bahati MP Kimani Ngunjiri is yet again embroiled in a fresh land grabbing scandal.

The UDA allied MP is now accused of grabbing a 2-acre piece of land from an elderly widow from his own Bahati Constituency at Kamiruri area. The case has been in court for years and the widow together with her son James Muigai failed to get justice.

However, since Ngunjiri is now seeking for re-election in the 2022 general elections, the MP has approached the family and he has donated to them a 1-acre piece of land at Wanyoro area still within Bahati Constituency.

Interestingly, Ngunjiri who has a series of land grabbing cases in Nairobi, Kiambu, Nakuru and other places illegally used the Bahati CDF kitty to purchase the 1-acre piece of land for the widow in order to avoid a backlash while seeking for re-election next year.

According to Muigai, they had to accept the land from the MP since they had been denied justice by the courts.

“We had no option other than taking the 1acre land despite him grabbing our 2-acre land. Kweli Kenya mnyonge hana chake,” said Muigai.

Ngunjiri is not new to land grabbing cases. The MP was named as a person of interest by Environment CS Keriako Tobiko in the murder of environmentalist Joannah Stuchbury. The MP is among a few prominent persons to have illegally acquired acres of land in Kiambu forest, according to documents tabled in the Senate. The MP owns 14.5 hectares of forestland

“I have never plotted to harm anyone leave alone kill, it was not fair for Tobiko to list me among the suspected killers without concrete evidence simply because we disagree politically,” the MP lamented over Tobiko’s report.

Stuchbury, a vocal environment activist who has protested against the construction in Kiambu forest was killed on July 15, 2021 as she drove into her home on the outskirts of Nairobi. She was shot several times by an assassin who left her body in the vehicle with the engine still running and everything intact.

On October 26, Tobiko told the Senate Security Committee that Stuchbury was murdered due to her environmental conservation efforts, specifically stopping the rehabilitation of a road in Kiambu Forest.

In another land grabbing case involving the MP, an elderly Ruai widow wants Ngunjiri arrested for defying a court order to surrender to her Sh15 million prime land in Industrial Area, Nairobi.

Pauline Ngomi Mwangangi, 72, wants the court to issue an arrest warrant, saying the lawmaker ignored an earlier ruling that directed him to surrender the parcel at Dunga Close—reference number 209/8313.

She says Justice B M Eboso of the Environment and Lands Court in Milimani issued the order on October 30 and dismissed Ngunjiri’s application for an injunction against her.

The granny says she has been reduced to a beggar after Ngunjiri evicted her from the premises last September, a property she says she has owned for the past 45 years.

She has accused the legislator of fraudulently obtaining documents and transferring the disputed plot to his name under a company called Pale Kenya Limited in which he is the principal director.

Ngunjiri is also listed among politicians and prominent people who grabbed acres of land in Ngong forest. Ngunjiri is said to have illegally acquired 18 acres of the land inside Ngong forest.

A report on the scandal showed that from an initial 7,231 acres of the forest, only 1,330 had been left with 6,000 acres lost to greedy politicians and State officials.

According to Citizen TV, politicians, high-profile individuals and corporations sold the land to many unsuspecting Kenyans who are facing a possible demolition as the government seeks to recover the forest.