Moi, USIU and Mwangi embroiled in land tussle

Baringo Senator Gideon Moi and Kanu Secretary-General Nick Salat have been entangled in a 20-acre land dispute in Muthaiga. 

 Details have emerged that Moi and Salat illegally sold the land to US based Kenyan tycoon businessman George Kiongera for Sh500 million. 

According to court documents, Salat asked Patrick Nderitu, the executive director of Diaspora Global Investments in 2015 to look for a buyer for the land stating that the property belonged to the former president Daniel Arap Moi. 

In February 2016, Nderitu presented Kiongera as the land’s willing buyer where the land was sold at Sh25 million per acre. 

  After making a down payment of 100M, Moi and Salat requested Kiongera to pay Sh30 million more on claims that he urgently needed the cash. 

 Kiongera then won a loan from Chase Bank Kenya to finance the purchase of the land. After Chase bank was shut down by CBK, Kiongera was forced to look for other funding from Equity Bank Kenya. 

During one of his site visits, Kiongera found a man planting Sukuma Wiki on his farm. The man told him that the farm was owned by United States University and it was just idle. 

Upon inquiry, Moi told him to ignore the rumours however, sometimes later he found some security personnel training on his farm; the soldiers claimed that they were guarding the farm for USIU. 

Kiongera also found out that the same land had been sold to Equity Bank CEO James Mwangi for 300M. The case is in court. 

Equity Bank had advanced Sh300 million to its CEO in 2012 to acquire the same property through his Muthaiga Luxury Homes firm, it was later revealed. 

The complicated web would later take on a new twist when USIU claimed ownership of the land, claiming that it purchased it from ICEA Lion for Sh90 million in 1999. 

The land was allegedly purchased by ICEA from DPS International, which had obtained it from the late former President Daniel Moi. 

Muthaiga Luxury Homes, for its part, told the court that it purchased the contested plot from the former president. 

The case is still pending in court. 

A hidden video captured at a meeting involving Moi, Salat, lawyer Jinaro Kibet and Nderitu, who was representing US-based businessman Kiongera, is one of the proofs of the property deal. 

On the day the secret video was recorded by Nderitu, he was running late for the meeting at Nairobi’s Sankara Hotel in Westlands, however, the senator, Salat and Kibet did not realize that Nderitu was discreetly recording them on his phone and the footage would later be used as evidence in a complicated land struggle. 

Moi had purchased the land from Joreth Limited, according to USIU documentation. USIU initially employed Paul Ndung’u, an attorney, to represent it in the lawsuit. Through his law practice, Ndung’u Njoroge & Kwach Advocates, Ndung’u was also one of the lawyers who assisted USIU in acquiring the property from ICEA in 1999. 

Attorney-General Paul Kihara Kariuki was at the time working for Ndung’u Njoroge & Kwach Advocates. Kariuki was given the duty of representing USIU in the deal by Ndung’u. 

In 2018, USIU and Ndung’u had a tense relationship. The university learned that its lawyer was a director of DPS International and had failed to disclose his ties to the firm or the contested land. 

Ndung’u claimed Sh150 million in legal fees from USIU. The complaint was launched by Mwangi’s Muthaiga Luxury Homes against Kiongera’s firm, Moi, USIU, and the Ministry of Lands. 

After doing due diligence to determine the land’s ownership, Muthaiga Luxury Homes claimed to have paid Mr Moi the full purchase amount in 2012. 

Mwangi’s business represented Andrew Sunkuli, a candidate for governor of Narok, and Omwanza Ombati, a presidential candidate for the Law Society of Kenya (LSK). Former President Moi was represented by Sunkuli and Ombati in that transaction. 

Following Moi’s death, Kiongera petitioned High Court Judge Aggrey Muchelule to seek the setting aside of Sh2.5 billion from Moi’s estate to cover his award in the land lawsuit if he won. 

The administrator of Moi’s estate, lawyer Zehrabanu Janmohammed, verified that the Muthaiga property is not in the former President’s testament. The property cannot be considered part of Moi’s estate, according to the court. 

While Moi’s lawyer, Ngatia, has submitted documents claiming that the former President never sold the land, Kiongera has countered with correspondence that contradicts that claim. 

Ngatia and Gideon have exchanged letters in which the latter requests that the court pleadings be amended to reflect that the land was solely sold to Maestro.