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Citizen Weekly

Sunday 7 December 2014

FAMILY WANTS MUTUNGA AID IN LAND CASE

A family in Siaya wants the National Land Commission and the Chief Justice to intervene and help them wrestle back their two-acre piece of land from the local county government.
Fanuel Otieno Oluoch on behalf of the family said the land was taken by the now defunct Siaya county council 32 years ago and efforts to have it back have been futile.
Oluoch said their father died in 1990 fighting for the same parcel of land which they alleged the council gazzetted as public land irregularly before it was declared a market.
The land registered as Kochieng B/1027 is today being used as Mbolori market after it was reportedly donated by one of the former councillors in the area and a retired assistant chief allegedly without the family’s consent.
According to documents relating to the case, February 24 1982, the land arbitration board gave the land to Michael Oluoch Ahuyo following a dispute pitting him against his brother Raphael Oyugi Ahuyo.
But Oluoch claimed that bitter with the judgment delivered by the board chaired by one Jane Okech, Ahuyo is alleged to have colluded with the then area councillor Okech Langa and assistant chief who was his son and they reportedly handed the land to the council without the approval or the knowledge of the genuine owners.
Two years later in 1984, the council moved in and began using the parcel as public utility forcing the late Michael to move to court.  Now, 32 years later, the matter is yet to be concluded.  His firstborn son later took the matter upon the death of his father but in 1995, he too passed on while the matter was still pending in court.
The family in another attempt to get justice went to court in February 2007 and the High Court at Kisumu issued temporary injunction restraining the county council from using the land until the matter is heard and determined.
However, according to the family spokesperson, the local authority defied the court orders.  They also declined to send their representative to court since the matter began to date.
The family is now appealing to Chief Justice Willy Mutunga to help them so that the case can be resolved because the 32 years they have spent waiting for justice have been traumatising.

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