Syovata Ndambuki

Demolitions at the disputed East African Portland Cement Company’s land at Athi River, In Mavoko, Machakos county have topped the headlines for several days. In what seems like the most drastic measure to evict people from the disputed land, heavy demolition machinery and police officers have camped at the location. vowing to only leave after every building on site has been flattened. The eviction activities have spared no one, including churches, schools and palatial homes.
These demolitions which have stirred mixed reactions among Kenyans and local leaders, are just a tip of the ice berg or perhaps the climax to a series of events running as far back as 10 years ago. The East African Portland Cement Company’s (EAPCC) land story is a lengthy one, with rising and falling tides that finally culminated in the recent demolitions.

Caveat Emptor
In 2010, the company advertised in a newspaper article, its plans to sell about 1,300 acres of its land in Athi River. As the plan was awaiting approval from the Ministry of Industrialization, locals were warming up to own the land. In 2013, the then company’s director, during an interview with the Standard Media group warned the public from being duped into buying its land. By this time, SACCOs and land selling companies had been formed and were already collecting money. The director also advised the company’s board of directors against selling the land as this was seemingly bound to cause problems for the company and the locals. Notably, all the company’s land assets were under a caveat emptor, as per this interview. Legally, a “caveat emptor” loosely translates to “let the buyer beware” or if the buyer purchases property then its ” at their own risk”.

Land heist
Two years down the line, the problems escalated. In an article, penned by Paul Wafula, in March 2015, for the Standard Media, the writer details how close to 12,000 acres of the companies’ land are undergoing a hostile takeover by landgrabbers and encroachment by villagers. He terms the takeover as “the biggest land heist to hit a corporate entity in over a decade” noting that it would send shock waves to the country. Aimi ma Lukenya Society, a group that has been heavily mentioned in the current demolitions, is identified as just but one of the entities battling for the land, with several other groups identified. As squatters were building small structures and farmers cultivating on the land, the land grabbers were sub-dividing and selling chunks of it. And even with a court order to stop further encroachment and illegal development, the police could not help.

Clear warning
According to posts circulating on social media, EAPCC erected a billboard in 2016 cautioning buyers against being duped into buying the Athi River land. According to images of the alleged billboard, several parcels of land with their plot numbers are listed as not for sale. These parcels include L.R Nos. 10425, 8786, 10424, 7815/1 and 8784.
In 2017, ethnic clashes were reported in the media at the disputed Athi River Portland Cement land. The clashes, reportedly so deadly, left several injured and a few dead as gangs showed up with crude weapons to evict squatters from the land. Prior, similar skirmishes had been reported in 2016 and several other clashes have been reported from the area since then.

First demolition
The first demolition incident might have occurred in in 2018, based on a tweet from July of the same year. Twitter User, Nzau Terry, announced on her twitter account that that several houses at the EAPCC land in Athi River, Machakos had been demolished. The tweet barely attracted any attention.
Meanwhile, EAPCC was struggling as evidenced by reports that surfaced in 2019 about restructuring the company. In an article by the Daily Nation, the company had recalled an earlier notice to fire 800 of its employees. In another unverified report, from the same year, the company was to fire 136 of its managers and supervisors .
In 2022, November, right after the Kenya Kwanza coalition got into office, the Kenya Broadcasting Channel (KBC) reported that the government was to spend Shs. 600 million on the “cash-trapped and struggling” company to revive it “through Affordable Housing Projects and commercialization of it’s prime land”. The then newly appointed Trade, Investment and Industry Cabinet Secretary, Moses Kuria had said that a Cargo Hub and Green Energy Company were to be set up in the company’s idle lands to boost profitability. “We are discussing with a number of partners to use the idle land we have within EAPCC to develop Kenya’s first exclusive cargo airport,” he said
In June 2023, a 5-hour demolition activity took place, as reported by The Star. About thirty illegal structures and one half-completed permanent house were demolished by EAPCC after being issued with a court order to carry out this activity. In addition, 15 people were arrested in the operation overseen by anti-riot police.

Final blow?
October, 9th, the day Justice Annet Nyukuri from the Environment and Land Court, Machakos dismissed a case between EAPCC and Aimi ma Lukenya Society marked the beginning of the current messy demolitions. The case was a consolidation of two cases from 2014 and 2018 respectively, where Aimi ma Lukenya Society officials sued the EAPCC, requesting the court to declare the society as the legal owner of land estimated to measure 4,298 acres. Though public records show that the society was formed in 2014, the officials claimed that the land in question was transferred to the society’s ownership in May 1980. The society had also presented a title deed, which upon scrutiny was declared invalid.
On October, 13, 2023, just four days later, President William Ruto, while speaking during the launch of Square Pharmaceutical factory at EPZ, Athi River, said he was happy that the court had cleared the matter and that those occupying the land, hoping to make a profit by selling, should vacate. Further, he urged the Ministry of Lands to move with speed and revoke titles of speculators who were holding land titles for 10 to 30 years without developing them as reported by Standard Media on October 14th.

Surprise sale
Just hours after the president asked people to vacate, the demolitions began and went on for several days. Not even the tears of the affected households moved those in charge of the operations. Local leaders showed up to show solidarity, but even that did not stop the operation.
Two things marked the fourth day of demolitions, 17th October. First, there was vandalism and material theft as some members of the public tried to make away with valuable construction materials from the rubble at the site leading to arrests. The EAPCC also shocked the public with an advertisement in the Daily Nation announcing sale of its land at Mavoko. Plots LR No. 8784/144,145and 653 via regularization model. The advertisement also stated that first priority would be given to those already occupying the land and they had 14 days to state their claim. Regularization in property law means according an illegal settler some land rights and providing them with tenure through due process.