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William Ruto digs self into a deep hole on stolen land

16 mins read

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any weirder this campaign delivers the ultimate absurd. William Ruto, already in the courts for sitting on billions worth of stolen land and grabbing public property during his life in politics (which is the only job Ruto has ever done) now promises to forcefully take back stolen land from rich Kenyans and give it back to citizens for free.

Ruto says his government will buy the land but you can only buy something if it is on sale. Otherwise, you have to take the land whether the owners want it or not. That is their problem.

I have a list for William to start with. Number one let’s take the KCAA land which Ruto has agreed he grabbed but now wants to pay something small to keep the land where he built his Weston Hotel. Ruto has now given permission to the next government in fact even for the present government to take back that land and hand it to the rightful owner.

This has been a long battle for Ruto but he lost and now the Kenya government needs to take the KCAA property with no excuses.

Weston ‘owner’ Patrick Osero says DP Ruto his close associate

Wednesday, January 21, 2015 — updated on July 02, 2020

A man claiming to be the owner of Weston Hotel, next to Lang’ata Road Primary School, which is at the centre of a land row, says he is a close ally of the Deputy President.

Patrick Osero, however, denies that William Ruto has any interests in the hotel that was initially suspected of being behind the grabbing of the school playground. He insists he is the sole proprietor.

According to him, Mr Ruto only visits the place as his friend and customer. Mr Ruto’s daughter Shaleen, he said, frequents the gym at the hotel.

The Nation established, however, that she also has an office at Weston Hotel in spite of denials that the Ruto family has no interests there.

Mr. Ruto and Mr. Osero’s friendship dates back to the early 1990s when they were members of the Youth for Kanu ‘92, a notorious brigade founded to counter the struggle for multi-party democracy and ensure entrenchment of President Daniel Arap Moi’s Kanu regime.

YK ‘92, led by Cyrus Jirongo, gained notoriety for splashing out money that ultimately was traced to public coffers. The activities of the group contributed to the fiscal indiscipline that nearly bankrupted key State corporations and statutory institutions, stressed the National Treasury, and led to the near-collapse of the country’s economy.

The organisation was also involved in large-scale grabbing of public land, the ramifications of which are felt to this day in institutions that were badly affected such as the National Social Security Fund.

JUBILEE BENEFICIARY

“We met during YK’92 and he has been my very good friend and business partner since then,” Mr. Osero freely said of his association with the Deputy President.

It is an association that has benefited him under the Jubilee regime: “I am the chairman of the Agricultural Finance Corporation and therefore, he is also my boss as the Deputy President,” Mr. Osero told the Nation.

The bond between the two is said to be very strong. In the early years of former President Mwai Kibaki’s tenure, Mr. Osero stood surety worth Sh6 million for Mr. Ruto in a court case involving land.

He said that he acquired the 1.7 acres of land where the hotel sits in 1998 from a company called Priority Limited and built the hotel last year.

He did not delve into the details of how he acquired the land and how much it cost.

The land on which the hotel stands initially belonged to the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority.

The chairman of Wilson Airport Aircraft Operations Committee, Gad Kamau, confirms that the Weston Hotel parcel was grabbed in December 2002, shortly before the General Elections that saw Kanu lose power to Narc.

Mr. Osero denied that he may be a proxy. “You think I cannot own such a property? Why are Kenyans doubting?” he asked.

William Ruto has already admitted to grabbing the land so there is really nothing to talk about for the Kenya government just take the land and case closed. Thanks to Ruto’s new ideas to try to get elected.

Second, on the list is the land William Ruto was talking about this week when he told Kenyans that he owns 2,536 acres of land in Taita Taveta which was gifted to him by the mighty land grabber in the area Mr. Basil Criticos.

Read: Land grabber in Taita Taveta wants to solve land problems at the Coast.

This one has to be taken right away and Ruto didn’t even buy it so just hand it over peacefully and the people of Taita Taveta will get the title deeds by next week after the land has been subdivided.

This is one that is ready to go and finally the people there will have access to Lake Jipe the one you see overlooking the farm. The lake looks beautiful, doesn’t it?

Now the local people can’t get to that lake because they have to go through Ruto’s grabbed land and it is fenced and Ruto had to put an electric fence there to scare off the folks.

Now Ruto is saying that land can be given back to the citizens. Wonderful. Give Taita Taveta people their land and their lake back. They really need that to make a living. Have mercy on them.

Third, we have Eldoret where William Ruto grabbed properties worth billions and then went to the National Land Commission to allow him to pay for them after he stole them.

Court quashes NLC decision on land to Ruto

NATIONAL
By Patrick Kibet | Nov 7th 2021 | 4 min read

The Environment and Lands Court in Eldoret has quashed a decision by the National Land Commission to clear allocation of prime plots of land in Eldoret to Deputy President William Ruto.

In the case, the defunct Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC), the predecessor of the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC), in 2008 had sued Ruto alongside Magut Agencies Ltd, Somog Limited and former Commissioner of Lands Wilson Gachanja.

The case centres around parcels of land LR No Eldoret Municipality Block 8/574 – 588 and Block 8/540, which were subdivided from LR No. Eldoret Municipality, Block 8/83, in the heart of Eldoret town.

Magut Agencies Ltd, through its director Josiah Kiprotich Magut, on the October 7 last year filed an application seeking to have the court adopt a 2018 decision by NLC, which purported to give green light to the allocation to Ruto and others.

“The National Land Commission has already made a determination dated April 20, 2018 that has fully resolved the issues raised in the plaintiff’s suit,” Magut told the court.

He had told the court the NLC award was transmitted to the Chief Land Registrar in Uasin Gishu County Government and should be adopted as an order to settle the suit.

However, EACC opposed the application and told the court that the decision by NLC was made on April 20, 2018, nearly a year after the term of the first land commission had lapsed.

EACC further argued that there was no order referring the dispute to NLC and, in addition, the land commission did not have any power to determine issues relating to the validity of the titles.

Justice Stephen Kibunja in his decision said that there was no directive referring the dispute to NLC for review or arbitration.

“I have taken time to peruse court records, especially the typed proceedings running from April 23, 2008, to May 19, 2020, and I have not seen any order or direction issued by the court referring the dispute in this suit to the Commission for review or arbitration,” Justice Kibunja said.

The parties had, however, been given time on December 15, 2015, to pursue alternate dispute resolution.

He said that the case was filed two years before the promulgation of the Constitution and five years before the enactment of the NLC Act.

“Even though the Commission (NLC) proceedings do not disclose the date the complaint is acted upon was filed, it is clear the hearings took place in or around February 2017, which is about nine years after the filing of this suit in court,” he said.

He said that NLC went ahead to make a determination despite being informed that the dispute was before the court of law.

“The existence of this suit was brought to the attention of the Commission, and it is baffling how it proceeded to hear and purport to determine the dispute in the absence of any specific order by the court referring the matter to it,” he said.

Justice Kibunja held that NLC decision to hear the case without a verifiable court order contravened the provision of the Civil Procedure Act. “The Commission had no powers to oust the jurisdiction of this court that are derived from Article 162(2) (b) of the Constitution and Section 13 of the Environment and Land Court Act No. 19 of 2011,” he said.

He further noted that the NLC powers to review grants or disposition of public land to establish legality had expired by the time the decision was made.

“The said report having been made by the Commission without jurisdiction is null and void, and hence a nullity ab initio (to be treated as invalid from the outset),” Kibunja ruled.

He raised concern over the delay of the case which was filed on April 8, 2008 but has not proceeded to a full hearing.

“This court finds that it is unfortunate that the plaintiff took approximately 12 years to file the application to amend its plaint, but in view of the fact that the matter has never progressed to hearing of the main suit, I find that no prejudice will be occasioned upon the opposing parties,” he ruled.

He said there was no evidence produced in court to prove how consolidation of the more than 10 cases would prejudice the defendants.

EACC was given 14 days to file and serve an amended plaint.

Those properties in Eldoret need to be taken by the government as soon as possible. Ruto tried the same trick he was using with Weston Hotel. Steal public property and then offer to pay something small after you are caught. No sir. The government is taking back what you stole. No questions asked and it will go through the courts.

So there we go for now. We have a land thief who has been doing it all his adult life since leaving college and now he wants to be our president to help him keep all his stolen land and other public assets and he lies to Kenyans that he will take all stolen land back and give it to deserving Kenyans.

Well, Mr. Ruto just starts by handing over all the stolen public land and property you have right now. You don’t need to be a president to do that. Just hand them over and then maybe Kenyans will say you are a good person to be their president. How about that for a start.

And here is Ruto’s Dolphin Beach Hotel in Mombasa which has its own serious problems. Quite frankly very few people actually own everything in Kenya and they talk to us about poverty something they have absolutely no idea about. Kenyans will talk to them on August 9, 2022. They can’t do anything about that.

Adongo Ogony is a Human Rights Activist and a Writer who lives in Toronto, Canada

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