Agnes Kagure Imprints in Land Scams in the City
Land is an emotive subject not only for the majority poor in Kenya but the rich and mighty. The Environment and Land Court circuits across the country are handling a myriad of disputes that mirror on a rotten society. One of these cases is centered on a parcel of land in Nairobi’s Umoja Innercore which is at the centre of a legal tussle pitting Mr. Joel Munyoki Munene and Ms. Agnes Kagure Kariuki.
Documents in our possession from a case filed at the Environment and Land Court in Nairobi point to a high level of wheeler-dealer that seeks to deprive rightful owners of their hard earned property.
In the suit papers, Mr. Munene claims to have bought the piece of land in Inner-core Umoja from one Mr. Erastus Nyaga who had bought it from the original owner, Mr. Silas Mugo Kithenji. In an affidavit to support his case, Mr. Munene alleges that the City Council of Nairobi (as it was then) issued him with an assignment dated 31/05/2007 hence giving effect to the transfer to him. Matters came to head when he attempted to obtain a certificate of lease over the Suit Property when his application was rejected on the grounds that there had been double allocation of the plot in question notwithstanding he had been paying land rent and rates to the same City Council of Nairobi.
Exit Munene’s version; enter Ms. Agnes Kagure Kariuki who claims to have bought the same parcel of land from one. Jospeh Chege Muturi on 15/09/2016 and was issued with a certificate of lease that granted her possession of the Suit Property.
Interestingly, in their defence, the Nairobi City County Government (a successor of the City Council of Nairobi) disowned Ms. Kagure’s assertions and basing their argument on the records in their possession, declared Mr. Munene as the bona fide registered owner of the Suit Property.
In her defence, Ms. Kagure annexed documents purportedly executed by the then Mayor and Town Clerk sometime in November 2016. Fascinatingly, by that date, the City Council of Nairobi had by law ceased to exist as County Governments were in place following the promulgation of the 2010 Constitution. One then fails to understand how these documents were executed by a non-existent office. Another glaring discrepancy in Ms. Kagure’s documents is the lease which the Court found to have been signed by a Ms. Lydia Mbogo Kwamboka and not herself.
A litany of these discrepancies raised questions as to how Ms. Kagure acquired the Suit Property. The Court is yet to make a determination on this matter.
Fast forward to September 2017, the National Land Commission after several complains had to in a detailed report disown a conveyancing document filed by Ms. Kagure terming it as an “outright forgery.” Part of the report reads:
“The disputed signatures being the 2011 Conveyance, Contract and Letter allegedly from Robson to Agnes Kariuki are all forgeries, as they fundamentally differ in all characteristics from Mr. Roger B. Robson’s style of writing. The author of the signatures has higher pen speed that Mr. Robson could not attain at the time the documents were signed due to his age save for his health.”
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