Editor's Review

According to the lawyer, the victims embraced the shortcut and were paying for it.

Lawyer Ahmednasir Abdullahi now says the victims of the demolitions in Athi River, Machakos county, protracted their own agony.

Armed officers attached to the General Service Unit (GSU) were deployed to the area to guard the demolition exercise.

Houses, churches and mosques were part of the installations that were brought down by bulldozers

The over 4000-acre land in question belongs to the East Africa Portland Cement, as ruled by a court in Machakos which said the squatters were illegally occupying.

President William Ruto had also ordered the eviction of the land occupants, saying part of the land would be used in the expansion of the Export Processing Zone (EPZ).

A bulldozer bringing down a palatial house in Athi River.

Reacting to the matter, Ahmednasir suggested the developers on the land acted out of ignorance at the point of acquisition.

According to him, the victims might have had an idea that the land belonged to the cement company but went ahead to occupy it with the help of unknowing lawyers who he likened to Brian Mwenda, a supposed legal quack masquerading as a High Court Advocate.

According to him, they were driven by greed and thus deserve the agony they are going through right now.

"When you retain the service of Brian Mwenda and buy land belonging to Portland Cement Company using fake titles issued by an MP, and you build a house like this. You deserve what you get. A very shortcut is a wrong cut!" he said.

Ahmednasir further claimed that conniving politicians worked in cahoots with supposed land cartels to sell the land to the buyers, who are now bearing the brunt.

"What Governor Ndeti is not telling Kenyans is that local MPs and politicians made fake titles that subdivided Portland's land and sold to buyers who knew the land belonged to the cement company. In the process, the MPs and politicians made hundreds of millions," he added.