For nearly two decades, a 28-acre piece of land in Meru became the center of a dispute between two major Christian denominations, schools, and local authorities.
What began as competing claims over land allocation eventually reached the courts, with the Presbyterian Church of East Africa (PCEA) challenging the ownership arrangements involving the Catholic Diocese of Meru and institutions on the property.
The dispute revolved around land in Maraa that had been associated with community education and religious activities for decades. According to court records, PCEA said the land was allocated to it in March 1979 to establish a primary and secondary school. The church later sponsored Maraa Primary School, while efforts were made to establish a secondary school on the same property.
But the story took a different turn only two months later.
Court records show that another council resolution in May 1979 allocated the land to St Lucy School for the Blind, under the Catholic Diocese of Meru. Over the years, Catholic institutions continued using the property, while the competing claims remained unresolved.
The disagreement became particularly visible in the 2000s when the community sought land for Maraa Secondary School. With both PCEA and the Catholic Church claiming an interest in the property, finding space for the school became difficult. At one point, the secondary school was temporarily housed elsewhere before land was eventually set aside for it.
PCEA later challenged the subdivision and registration of the land, arguing that the subsequent allocation had unlawfully displaced its earlier claim. The case initially went in PCEA’s favor in 2018, when a lower court ordered the cancellation of the titles and return of the land.
However, the matter took a different direction on appeal.
In a judgment delivered in July 2020, the Environment and Land Court in Meru set aside the earlier decision and dismissed PCEA’s suit. The court held that council minutes expressing an intention to allocate land did not, by themselves, create proprietary rights. It also found that the later allocation and registration had crystallized the interests of the parties who obtained titles.
The ruling brought a major chapter of the long-running dispute to a close.
Yet beyond the legal documents and competing claims lies a deeply human story: land that communities hoped would serve children and education became the subject of years of disagreement.
For the people of Maraa, the case was never simply about 28 acres. It was about institutions, history, faith, and the difficult question of who has the right to call a piece of land their own.