A Kenyan has surrendered land valued at Ksh12 million to the police after the courts ruled that it had been grabbed from the Karatina Police Station in Nyeri County.
In a statement dated Friday, February 27, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) revealed that it recovered the land from Peter Ngari after a protracted legal battle.
EACC stated that the Environment and Land Court in Nyeri had ordered Ngari to hand over the 0.074 acres of land back to the state without any compensation.
"In a consent recorded before the Environment and Land Court in Nyeri between the EACC and the registered owner, Mr Peter Thinwa Ngari, Justice Evans Makori on 17 February 2026 ordered the surrender of the Certificate of Lease for Karatina Municipality/Block II/383 to the Government, free of any encumbrances," the statement read in part.
The Anti-Corruption Commission explained that Ngari was an innocent buyer who bought the land after it was illegally annexed from the Karatina Police Station in 1998.
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EACC disclosed that the land was meant for building housing units for officers posted to the station.
"Further inquiries revealed that in 1998, a survey excised part of the land and generated two development plans: Ref. No. C20/98/4 for a proposed residential plot and Ref. No. C20/98/5 for the existing police station site.
"The excised parcel was allocated to Joseph Mithamo Wachira, who later transferred it to Peter Thinwa Ngari on 19 July 2001," the statement read in part.
EACC implicated former Provincial Physical Planner in the Ministry of Lands, Johnson Muriuki Ruthuthi and former Commissioner of Lands Wilson Gachanja in the land theft.
Ruthuthi and Gachanja are accused of facilitating the irregular excision and allocation of the land, which at the time had already been designated as government property.
EACC called on Kenyans holding title deeds of land grabbed from the government to voluntarily surrender the property to the state through the Commission under the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) framework.
