Mama Ngina, Criticos in Taveta title deed puzzle

By Newsflash Writer

Former First Lady Mama Ngina Kenyatta and former Taveta MP Basil Criticos have found themselves at the heart of a complex and protracted land dispute marked by missing title deeds, competing court orders, and claims of squatter settlement.

The dispute revolves around a vast tract of land in Taveta, parts of which have changed hands over decades, been charged to banks, subdivided, auctioned, and subjected to multiple legal battles. At the centre of the current controversy is the question of ownership and the whereabouts of the original title deed, with courts issuing fresh directives in an effort to resolve the impasse.

The land matter has also intersected with high-profile political dealings, including a 2017 transaction in which President William Ruto—then Deputy President—purchased a portion of the Taveta land from Criticos, further complicating the ownership trail.

Origins of the dispute

At the time of the sale to Ruto, Criticos was already embroiled in court battles over the Taveta property, which had been charged to the National Bank of Kenya following loan default. As the bank moved to recover its funds, Criticos opted to sell part of the land, even as he continued to fight off claims by squatters who had settled on sections of the property.

On January 19, 2018, less than a year after Ruto completed payment for the land, he used the property as collateral to secure a Sh200 million loan from a local lender.

However, the sale did little to resolve the legal uncertainty surrounding the remaining land, which continued to attract claims from various State agencies.

Court filings show that the Ministry of Interior later sought to subdivide land registered jointly in the names of Criticos and Mama Ngina Kenyatta and allocate portions to individuals described as squatters under the Jipe/Kachero Settlement Scheme. This move triggered fresh litigation, with the two landowners disputing claims that the land had been surrendered to the State decades earlier.

Court orders and missing title deed

In 2022, Criticos and Kenyatta moved to court to challenge the Lands ministry over assertions that a 2,624-acre parcel had been handed over for squatter settlement. Despite the matter remaining unresolved, the ministry allegedly released the original title deed to an individual identified as Jonathan Kiragia, who claimed to be acting on behalf of Criticos.

The release of the title deed would later become a key point of contention in court. In a ruling delivered on December 11, 2024, the High Court noted that official records showed Kiragia had collected the ownership documents, making it difficult to hold the Chief Land Registrar in contempt for failing to produce the title deed.

The court subsequently directed Criticos to apply for a provisional title—a temporary ownership document issued when the original title is lost or unavailable—pending recovery of the original deed. The Chief Land Registrar was ordered to issue the provisional title within 30 days.

However, the situation took another turn when the court was informed that the same land was on the verge of being allocated to individuals listed by the Ministry of Interior as squatters, raising the risk of overlapping ownership claims.

Fresh orders and ‘surrendered land’ claims

On December 11, 2025, the High Court issued fresh orders directing that a new title deed be processed and issued to Criticos and Mama Ngina Kenyatta. Criticos told the court that an earlier attempt to secure a replacement title had been rejected in April 2025, with the Chief Land Registrar citing failure to attach mandatory documents, including a court order, survey plan, a copy of the lost title deed, and an inspection report from the National Land Commission (NLC).

In response, the Chief Land Registrar argued that the Taveta land was private property and therefore fell outside the mandate of the NLC, whose authority is limited to public land. It also emerged that the larger 35,177-acre property was initially acquired jointly in 1975 by Criticos’ father, George Vassil Criticos, and Mama Ngina Kenyatta.

Part of the Criticos family land was later sold through a National Bank of Kenya auction after loan default, a sale Criticos successfully challenged in court, arguing that interest rates had been unlawfully escalated and the property sold at an undervalued price. In 2022, the High Court awarded him Sh2 billion in damages over the auction of 35,994 acres.

In its latest submissions, the Chief Land Registrar maintained that Criticos and Kenyatta had surrendered land in 1997 to facilitate the settlement of squatters. The office argued that the land had since been planned, surveyed, and demarcated, with documentation already issued to residents of the Kachero Settlement Scheme.

However, the court held that the application before it was not an attempt to reopen closed proceedings but a bid to enforce compliance with existing court orders, paving the way for fresh directions on the processing of the disputed title deed and prolonging a land saga that continues to entangle powerful names and State institutions.