A section of Jamia Mosque in Nairobi.
City Hall has distanced itself from the National Land Commission’s compulsory acquisition of Sh3.9 billion land belonging to Jamia Mosque for the construction of matatu terminus at the Globe Cinema roundabout in Nairobi.
The county government has told the Environment and Lands Courts (ELC) that it did not request the lands agency to acquire the 2.083 hectares parcel to put up the matatu terminus.
In a sworn affidavit before the court, Mr Patrick Mbogo, the county executive committee member for Urban Planning, says the court has never budgeted for the acquisition of the Mosque land, neither “has it provided for it in the county integrated development plan (CIDP)”.
Mr Mbogo also says the Registered Trustees of Jamia Mosque who filed the case, “instituted it in bad faith and is fashioned to force it acquire the property”.
The county government says this will force the county to unjustly spend taxpayers’ resources to pay money that is not due to them.
“The Nairobi City County Government did not at any point sanction the NLC to publish Gazette Notice 643 of January 19, 2023, notifying the public of the inquiry into the proposed compulsory acquisition of the suit property on its behalf,” Mr Mbogo says in the affidavit dated March 10.
The county government has urged the lands court to quash the gazette notice through which the land in question was acquired.
Mr Mbogo also says the gazette notice by the commission was not approved by the county government and therefore amounts “to a violation of the constitutional principles of public participation, devolution and consultation as enshrined in Articles 10, 174 of the Constitution of Kenya 2010”.
“Further it says under Section 108 of the Land Act 2012 any intention by the NLC to acquire the Jamia Mosque land for public utility would have been initiated by the county executive responsible for matters related to land. This has never happened,” Mr Mbogo asserts.
He adds that involving the Nairobi City County Executive Committee Member responsible for lands remains a mandatory requirement to validate any compulsory acquisition of land, and “failure to secure such approval renders the entire process legally untenable”.
The county has also fought the claimant’s assertions that Nairobi City County is the predecessor of the Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS), saying it is the City Council of Nairobi.
NMS was established in March 2020 following a deed of transfer from Nairobi County to the national government.
The transfer encompassed key functions such as health services, transport, public works and planning. The county government says in the handover report from NMS, that the land in question was not mentioned.
The court has been informed that without such approval, any subsequent steps towards compulsory acquisition would be procedurally flawed, illegal, and subject to nullification by the courts.
Mr Mbogo was responding to a case by the Registered Trustees of Jamia Masjid Ahle Sunait Wal Jamiat (Jamia Mosque) seeking a compensation of Sh3.926 billion from the Lands Commission.
The Commission, through its lawyer Titus Koceyo, said the land is still the property of the mosque.
In the case filed under a certificate of urgency, the trustees of the mosque are urging the court to compel the Commission to pay it Sh3,926,568,896 for acquiring the land. The registered trustees of Jamia Mosque have named Nairobi County and the Commission as respondents in the suit.
The court has directed all the parties to file written submissions before March 24, 2025 when the case will be heard.
