The year 2018 is one that many business and property owners in Nairobi are unlikely to forget in the near future.
Despite having invested heavily in multi-billion-shilling businesses that have for long been the talk of the town, they watched helplessly as a multi-agency task force pulled down their properties.
Driven by the urgency to safeguard riparian land and secure road reserves, the Nairobi regeneration task force, brought powerful and modern bulldozers and excavators and demolished the buildings amid the outcry of investors.
The task force comprising the National Environment Management Authority, the Kenya Urban Roads Authority and the county government insisted that the demolition of illegal structures was unstoppable.
The team was tasked with reclaiming the Nairobi River and its tributaries that had been threatened by dumping of garbage and encroachment. The team was appointed by President Uhuru Kenyatta.
“What we did, and will continue next year, was good for all. People have built houses on top of rivers. The government cannot expand roads because people have encroached on road reserves. This is the impunity we’re fighting,” building inspectorate secretary Moses Nyakiongora said.
Nyakiongora also chairs the task force tasked with auditing buildings in the city for safety, following a spate of buildings collapsing in residential estates. Many death traps still dot the city.
Taj Mall Limited owner Rameshchandria Gorasia, a wealthy businessman whose Sh5.5 billion Airgate Centre, formerly Taj Mall, was one of the buildings pulled down during the year, said 2018 is the year he will live to recall.
“First, it sent fear down the spines of potential investors. Two, it shows that investors should not have faith in government authorities,” he said.
Former Bobasi MP Stephen Manoti’s Sh2 billion Southend Mall located next to the Mbagathi Way–Lang’ata Road roundabout was the first high-end building to be razed.
It was pulled down on August 6, under tight security by armed police officers. The scene attracted a huge crowd that watched in disbelief. The building stood on top of Mutuini-Ngong River and had been at the centre of a public uproar since 2013.
Residents and environmental conservationists had protested its construction, arguing that it interfered with the natural flow of the river and was responsible for frequent flooding in South C, Lang’ata and Nairobi West estates.
Manoti, a businessman and an influential politician who knows who is who in government, was considered untouchable. Bringing down his lifetime investment was, therefore, a clear pointer to other investors who had properties on prohibited areas that theirs would also be demolished.
Two days before Manoti’s building was brought down, the team had pulled down a Java outlet and Shell Fuel station in Kileleshwa. Walls of several apartments in the posh estate were also razed for being on riparian land.
On August 10, the 25-year-old Ukay Centre in Westlands was reduced to rubble. The building, valued at about Sh1 billion, was located near River Kinagare, a tributary of Nairobi River that flooded heavily in 2016.
Property manager Veeral Shah dismissed claims the building was on riparian land. He said it was 10 metres from a canalised stream.
Nakumatt Supermarket chief executive Atul Shah, who owned the building, claimed he lost goods and furniture worth more than Sh150 million. Shah said the demolition had hit hard the struggling retail supermarket’s recovery plans.
But it was the demolition of the Sh5.5 billion Airgate Centre, formerly Taj Mall, in Embakasi that marked the climax of the exercise. It stood on Outering Road–North Airport Road junction and despite some residents saying the building had revamped the area, the authorities said it blocked the expansion of the corridors.
Kenya Pipeline Corporation said it stood on top of underground oil pipelines. But proprietor Rameshchandra Gorasia claimed he had all the approval documents from relevant government authorities.
“Do they think I’m a stupid person to put up a building like this and then go and demolish it myself? Unless I have gone mad,” a visibly angry Gorasia said during a press conference outside the building.
“I’m inviting President Uhuru Kenyatta to come and say that I’m wrong to have constructed on this land. The mistake has been done by the government.
“Who did the transfer to me and issued the title? Who approved the plans and gave the authority to build? Was it not the government?”
Gorasia dared the government to deny knowledge of the permits.
As owners of high-end buildings cried foul, poverty-stricken residents were also suffering at the hands of the demolition team.
Thousands of slum dwellers were left homeless and small-scale traders who had stalls on restricted land were left counting huge losses. Many livelihoods were lost.
On July 23, more than 30,000 people in Kibera slums were left without homes after Kura razed their homes to the pave the way for construction of Ngong Road-Kibera-Kiungu Karumba-Lang’ata link road.
Education of thousands of children, including KCPE and KCSE candidates, was disrupted. City Hall also cleared several structures on road reserves in nearly every corner of the city. Between April and August, county askaris demolished more than 10,000 ‘illegal structures’, including kiosks, garage shades, car washes and shoe shine booths across the capital.
In April, the county pulled down more than 1,000 structures along or inside all matatu termini. Residents who depended on the stalls for a living were left jobless.
This was to create space for more vehicles in readiness for removal of matatus from the CBD. The exercise was carried out in Ngara, Bus station, Machakos country bus station, Muthurwa and Railways bus station.
On June 23, City Hall inspectorate demolished more than 1,000 kiosks and garages in Umoja, Imara Daima and Embakasi estates. More than 15 illegal structures were also pulled down along Kiambu Road.
Former county director of operations Peter Mbaya, who was then in charge of the exercise, said the structures were on road reserves and their removal was not only meant to create space for expansion of the highways, but also restore the city’s aesthetic nature.
“Nairobians were crying that criminals were using these structures as hideouts. People were being terrorised. It was necessary for us to move in,” he said.
As necessary as it would be, different residents would respond differently to the crackdown.
To paraphrase Charles Dickens’ famous French Revolution novel — A Tale of Two Cities — it was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the year of wisdom, it was the year of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness…
The glaring difference in this case being that it was a tale of one city.