The air in Muthaiga is usually still, broken only by the sound of high-end SUVs and the occasional gardener. But this morning, the quiet on this particular leafy stretch was replaced by the presence of police from Gigiri and a group of determined-looking individuals. By the time the sun was up, the long-standing tug-of-war over this Sh1 billion piece of real estate had reached a messy, physical climax.
Justice Jennifer Mutuku’s order wasn’t just a piece of paper anymore; it was an action. After years of legal back-and-forth, the court finally cleared the way for Mount Pleasant Limited to take what it claims is theirs. I watched as the OCS Gigiri supervised the handover, a process that is never as clean as the legal jargon suggests. There’s a certain weight to seeing a property change hands like this. One minute it’s a billionaire’s stronghold; the next, the locks are being changed and the legal reality of a High Court judgment sets in.
“The order has been executed,” the judge noted later, confirming that Mount Pleasant had finally gained possession. For James Mwangi, the Equity Bank CEO, this wasn’t just a legal setback; it was a visible loss of territory. You could feel the tension among the legal teams. Taking possession is the “nuclear option” in land law; it changes the facts on the ground while the lawyers continue to argue about the history of the title.
The Chief Land Registrar and the National Land Commission have been dragged into this mess too, mostly to answer for how two different parties ended up with documents for the same soil. For now, the gates belong to Mount Pleasant, and the sprawling quiet of Muthaiga has been replaced by the cold reality of a court-sanctioned eviction.