Makongeni Police Lines Yesterday, 16th January 2023, Thika DCIO Joseph Thuvi made a surprise visit to the Makongeni area of Thika Sub-County, Kiambu County.
He was in the company of Felix Kiarie Nduati, a man with an existing arrest warrant from the Thika Law Courts and who is known and feared within Thika over land matters.
And no, Felix Kiarie Nduati was not in handcuffs.
The visit was due to rising tensions over a 10-acre piece of land in the Makongeni, which is just next to Flame Tree Park, and a short distance away from Ananas mall on the Thika-Garissa Highway.
The land has, as has become common in Central Kenya, been under protracted tussle within the courts for more than 15 years.
In that time, the owners of the parcel of land have managed to keep it vacant despite active attempts to invade and sub-divide the property by interested parties.
However, with the matter on its last legs before the Environment and Land Court (ELC) and hearing of the case imminent, there is a wave of desperation by cartels and thugs to sell the property to unwitting victims and to leave them fighting the owners, while the thugs take off.
For the avoidance of doubt, the land in question has been under stewardship and protection of the court for that period. One of the orders issued by the High Court on the land The High Court has issued a series of court orders directing the OCS of the nearby Makongeni Police Station to ensure that the property is not encroached and successive OCS’s have done a passably good job of ensuring that this did not happen. One of the orders issued by the High Court on the land All this changed yesterday when Thika DCIO Joseph Thuvi left the Divisional Headquarters personally and came to oversee the encroachment and subdivision of the land.
He told the landowners who were there to protect their land that he would arrest them if they engaged in a physical confrontation with the land grabbers.
Behind him, Felix Kiarie Nduati, the man who was orchestrating the land grab, smiled sheepishly. He continues to spend his days at the site, supervising the encroachment personally and safe in the knowledge that he is protected and untouchable despite an arrest warrant.
Why would the DCIO arrive at the site of a confrontation about land and personally insert himself in it, while openly taking one side, despite the existence of court orders that the land remain vacant?
Why would the senior DCI officer bypass the next-door Makongeni Police station, go directly to the disputed property, and leave his colleagues completely in the dark about his presence there? How can innocent landowners stand against such powerful law enforcement officers who had a vested interest in their property? Apparently despite the new DCI at Mazingira House, the body of the fish rotted ages ago and the sheep are now in the hands of the hyenas.