A High Court in Eldoret has ordered Kapseret Member of Parliament (MP) Oscar Sudi to cease the occupation and cultivation of a 50-acre piece of land that belongs to a former colonial-era chief Kibor Talai after a suit by the children of the chief on March 17th seeking orders to restrain Sudi from trespassing or cultivating the land.
The court stated that Sudi had no business cultivating the land that is yet to be divided to the late Talai’s kin as the succession cause of 2014 is still pending in the High court.
Justice Millicent Odeny further noted that the MP was not among beneficiaries of the land and that he was actually breaking the law by violating orders issued in April 2016 preventing the invasion of the land by strangers.
“The defendant herein is not a beneficiary and there would be no way of dealing with the dispute in the succession cause pending before the High court. The succession cause involves the beneficiaries and the distribution of the estate,” Justice Odeny stated.
“The court stopped the beneficiaries from selling, altering, or charging the suit land. How do you deal with a third party who is neither a beneficiary nor a party to the succession cause?”
The MP, however, claims through his lawyer Jane Tororei that he had entered in a Memorandum of Understanding with Eunice Talai, a widow of one of the sons of long-dead Arap Talai allowing him to till the land.
Sudi says the agreement was he till a portion of the land and in exchange offer financial aid to her children.