In Taita Taveta County, a land ownership dispute involving some of Kenya’s most prominent figures, including President William Ruto, former lawmaker Basil Criticos and former First Lady Mama Ngina Kenyatta, has resurfaced with fresh legal directions and ongoing questions about title deeds.
The controversy centres on a large tract of land in the coastal county that was once held jointly by Criticos and Mama Ngina’s family. Over decades, this property has passed through various hands, been used as security for loans and seen competing claims from government agencies, residents and private owners. Efforts to conclusively settle the ownership history have been complicated by missing title deeds and overlapping legal actions.
In 2017, when William Ruto was serving as Kenya’s Deputy President, he acquired a 2,536-acre parcel of land from Basil Criticos. The transaction was documented at the time, and Ruto later described part of this land as a gift from Criticos after he helped the former MP settle a loan issue. This purchase became part of a long-running scrutiny of land ownership records in the region.
Despite the sale to Ruto, substantial parts of the original property remained at the centre of court cases. Criticos and Mama Ngina have both claimed joint ownership of roughly 1,062 hectares of the larger estate and sought judicial intervention after repeated failures by government officials to issue the corresponding title deed. They have argued that without an official certificate of title, their rights to the land remain unrecognised, even as State entities pursue settlement and reallocation plans for parts of the property.
Legal filings show that multiple court orders have been issued to clarify the disputed land’s status. One key issue has been the inability to locate the original title deed, which has hindered efforts to grant official ownership documentation. In response, the High Court directed that provisional title documents be issued while the original certificate remains missing. Government arguments have included claims that portions of the land were surrendered for settlement schemes in past decades, further complicating the legal landscape.
Most recently, just before the end of 2025, the court issued fresh directives for the processing of a new title deed in the names of Criticos and Mama Ngina, requiring that the necessary documents and surveys be prepared so that a replacement title can be formalised. This represents another chapter in a dispute that has spanned years and involved intricate questions of land law, property rights and historical ownership.
The Taita Taveta case highlights ongoing challenges in land ownership documentation across Kenya. Disputes over land titles are not unique to this case; similar conflicts have emerged elsewhere, prompting discussion about how title deeds are processed, safeguarded and verified at the national level. At the same time, the government has pursued large-scale issuance of title deeds to residents in many parts of the country as part of broader land reform efforts.
