Kariobangi Sewage Estate residents, numbering over 8,000 in Nairobi were left homeless after the government moved to demolish the settlement.
The exercise was overseen by the Ministries of Land and Water in a move to reclaim the land parcel that had been reserved for sewerage facilities.
Residents on Monday, May 4, woke up to demolitions by an excavator which was under the guard of armed police officers.
Speaking to journalists, Senior Counsel John Khaminwa, the lawyer representing the residents revealed that he had obtained a court order stopping the demolition but it was not obeyed.
“I’m representing the Kariobangi Sewage Farmers self-help group. This self-help group has 376 members, they occupy a plot in Kariobangi area, the plot number is LR8285/1/1. They have occupied it since 1996, the total population is about 8,700 people who stay there.
“They are humble people who stay in this particular plot. They approached us yesterday and we wrote several letters to the officials in the government to ask them not to evict them. We should probably have a discussion or a conversation to see how we can sort out this issue.
“We eventually decided to go to court, we drafted the document and placed this document before the high court. We were to get in touch with the Chief Justice to give us a judge to hear the matter, indeed he did so and the matter was placed before a judge Justice Okong’o,” stated Khaminwa.
The lawyer added that the judge made the orders in their favour and served the police with the order which stated that evictions and demolitions had to be halted.
The Kariobangi Sewerage Treatment Plant meant to occupy 30.2 hectares (74.6 acres), was classified as at-risk, with 13.64 hectares (33.7 acres) already encroached on.
A woman from the area produced documents of the contentious piece of land stating, as many of the residents argued, that she had legally purchased the land.
“In 1996 we were given documents for this land, we have the title and lease. We pay land rates to City Council (County Government of Nairobi).
“There was a survey, they divided the land between ours and for the Ministry of Water,” claimed the woman.
