Illegal developers’ cartel: Alleged godfather, City Hall and NCA officials’ culpability in collapsed South C building
An influential ‘godfather’ who reportedly bulldozed the continued construction of a16-storey building that collapsed on Thursday nightat the South CShopping Centre in Nairobi trapping at least two people whose fate still remains uncertain and injured one more has exposed the laxity and possible complicity ofbuilding regulators and developments approval systems just days after another building came tumbling down along Peponi Road in Westlands, Nairobi amid claims of corruption and poor workmanship.
Yesterday, both the Nairobi County Government Urban Planning and Development department and the National Construction Authority (NCA) whohave perennially been blamed for either abetting the crimes or being complicit for their inactionin the past confirmed having had prior knowledge and even flagging the condemned building but strangely, construction continued with impunity exposing neighbours and road users to grave danger.
On its part, NCA said the building was non-compliant while the Nairobi governor Johnson Sakaja’s administrationsaid its enforcement teams had cited the project for violations on three separate occasions and that the development was only cleared up to twelve floors.
The structure was a proposed mixed-use development on Muhono Avenue, plot number 68/1306, South C Ward, Lang’ata Sub-County.
NCA identified the developer on record as Abyan Consulting Limited, which also served as the contractor for the project.
The consultants listed include Architect Gideon Chege Mwangi, Engineer Peter Kimani Kireru and Quantity Surveyor James Kiragu Njoroge.
The contractor is registered under the NCA 4 category for Building Works, with Yussuf Mohamed Yussuf listed as the sole company director.
According to a situation report issued by City Hall, the building located at Plot No. 209/5909/10 along Kiganjo Muhoho Avenue in South C Ward had been subjected to enforcement action on multiple occasions in May, July and December 2025 over what authorities described as “a number of infractions.”
In a statement issued yesterday, NCA Executive Director Maurice Akech said the collapsed building was non-compliant. “The project was registered by the authority on November 8, 2023, and at the time of the collapse was non-compliant,” Akech said.
Despite these interventions, construction activity continued until the structure suffered a catastrophic pancake collapse in the early hours of January 2, 2026, with at least two people believed to be trapped beneath the debris.
Yesterday, the Kenya Red Cross deployed initial emergency response team to conduct search and rescue efforts before being joined by the Nairobi City County, the Kenya Defence Forces Disaster Response Battalion, the National Youth Service and the Nairobi Fire Brigade deployed teams at the site to manage emergency services.
“Early this morning, a building under construction collapsed in the Shopping Centre area of South C, Nairobi County,” the Kenya Red Cross said.
”The area has been cordoned off as the National Disaster Management Unit, Nairobi City County, the National Police Service, and the Kenya Red Cross continue search and rescue operations,” Red Cross said in a statement.
The cause of the collapse was not immediately known, and casualties had not been confirmed at the time of publication as search-and-rescue operations continued.
Authorities have cordoned off the area to secure the site and prevent further risk to the public.
The incident has once again raised concerns over approval processes, construction safety standards, and enforcement of regulations governing high-rise developments in Nairobi, amid a spate of similar incidents in recent years.
In September 2023, a ten-storey residential building under construction collapsed along Mirema Drive in the Zimmerman area of Roysambu, damaging neighboring structures. No casualties were reported, though preliminary investigations suggested poor-quality structural concrete as a possible cause.
In October 2024, an eight-storey residential building in Kahawa West also collapsed. The structure had earlier been condemned for demolition, and tenants were being evacuated, limiting injuries to a minimum.
In the past, a report by a taskforce and a team of investigators formed to undertake forensic investigations into at least 200 buildings whose construction approvals were deemed questionable revealed a total of 400 buildings out of the audited 3, 914 buildings in Huruma alone have failed structural test and thus should be demolished.
In August 2016, three people were killed after a wall collapsed and trapped them underneath while digging trenches along Brookside Drive in Nairobi’s Westlands.
Four months earlier, three others were killed after a perimeter wall on Lenana Road collapsed on them as they shielded from the rain in what was attributed to poor workmanship.
