A city billionaire could not hold much longer on to a prime piece of land he had acquired after the government repossessed it through a court ruling.
A report published by Daily Nation on Wednesday, January 29, stated that tycoon Mike Maina's title deed for land in Murang'a Town was declared null and void by the Environment and Land Court.
Justice Grace Kemei further ordered the tycoon not to interfere with the land which has now been reverted back to Kenya Prisons.
In 2017, Maina, the owner of Marble Arch Hotel in Nairobi, had sought orders to restrain the prisons department from encroaching on the multi-million land after the agency announced plans to build a correctional facility for juveniles.
He further argued that he purchased the land legally from one Stanley Njuguna Maina and thereafter adhered to the stipulated process of acquiring a title deed from the Lands Registry.
"According to evidence adduced in this court, the land was alienated for public use to develop a juvenile department in 1966 through a Kenya Gazette Notice.
"Although the petitioner bought it from Stanley Njuguna Maina, who was purportedly issued with the ownership documents, he ought to have known that it was government land reserved for public use," Justice Grace Kemei ruled, stating that the office of the attorney general and the commissioner of Prisons had given satisfactory evidence.
Maina isn't new to controversy. In 2018, he was involved in a court dispute with Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko after the tycoon's firm, Muthithi Investments Ltd initiated the demolition of houses in Kayole, Nairobi.
In January 2020, he was named in a shady deal between him, his lawyer Chege Kirundi, and other government officials. The deal which stretched over two decades resulted in the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) losing Ksh293 million.
The land in question was reportedly excised from Karura Forest and sold to a private firm identified as Kitusuru Limited, which is associated with Kirundi and Maina in 1993.
