Plans to evict a company owned by former Gatundu MP Ngengi Muigai from a 443-acre land in Thika hit a brick wall on Thursday after police from Kiambu County failed to provide officers for the court-ordered exercise.
Kiambu County commander Michael Muchiri, who risks being jailed for contempt of court, had not reported to work at 9.30 am when auctioneers hired for the job left his office after waiting for three hours.
Bidii Kenya Ltd has been trying to evict Mr Muigai’s Muiri Coffee Estates Ltd from the land since 2014 when the High Court issued orders to that effect. Mr Muigai is a cousin of former President Uhuru Kenyatta.
The court order, now 10 years old, is yet to be effected as none of the past county commanders provided Bidii Kenya with police officers to carry out the eviction. Bidii Kenya filed a contempt of court application against the Kiambu police boss in 2017.
On Tuesday, High Court judge Freda Mugambi ordered Mr Muchiri to evict Mr Muigai’s company within seven days. The county police boss is to report back in court on March 18 and give the judge a status update on the eviction.
Zachariah Baraza, an auctioneer with Siuma Traders, who was hired to conduct the eviction, said that he informed Mr Muchiri and Inspector-General of Police Japheth Koome of the intention to do the eviction Thursday.
Mr Baraza held that the letters he wrote were both formally received by both offices.
Mr Muchiri did not respond to our calls or text messages inquiring whether the eviction is likely to be done before the court-given deadline.
“Yesterday [Wednesday] I wrote a letter to the Inspector-General indicating that I would wish to get assistance of the police through the county commander Kiambu, which was received by the Inspector-General’s office. I also wrote to Kiambu County commander asking for assistance so that we can be able to execute the order. I have been here since 6.30 am but I have not had any assistance because I have not been able to see the county commander, he is not around so I have now chosen to go back to my office,” Mr Baraza said.
“It (the land) doesn’t have much. But you see, what does the court order say? I have to be accompanied by the police. So I don’t want to do something that is in breach of the court order. There are people there. It’s a farm that is running,” he added.
This is the sixth year that this auctioneer, Mr Baraza, has been on the case.
We also visited the land, a vast unfenced farmland, that we found being guarded by a solitary security guard.
The security guard, who did not give us his name, told us that no one, including the manager of the property, was on the premises.
He claimed that the manager left just moments before our team arrived, and may not be back until next Monday.
The outlook of the premise seemed to confirm Mr Muchiri’s words in court that the land in dispute was ‘ghostly’. “On Monday I was able to go to the farm and while there I can confirm that we found only skeleton staff,” Mr Muchiri told the Court.
“It is basically ghostly, just a few people around there,” he added.
But the auctioneer said they wanted to gain possession of the land humanely, and in line with the court order – under police supervision.
By DOMINIC OMONDI