A 47-year-old mother of eight spent Thursday night in the cold, after auctioneers demolished the house she has lived in for decades and made away with goods of an unknown value.
The dispute pits Maryam Hassan Abdalla, a niece to the wife of the late Mohamed Saeed Bahanan, the original owner of the property situated in Malindi town, and proxies of a shadowy alleged heir to the late Bahanan’s estate said to be living in Yemen.
The demolition and confiscation of property belonging to Maryam Hassan Abdalla and her tenants was supervised by police officers from the Malindi Police Station, who claimed they were enforcing a court order that they did not avail to the media.
The auctioneer’s staff removed the roof of the house, broke metallic doors and confiscated property belonging to Maryam and two shop owners renting the premises, which they loaded onto two pick-up vehicles and drove off as the shop owners and their landlady watched in disbelief.
A huge crowd of onlookers gathered at the site next to the Kanu Office Building in Malindi town, disrupting traffic along the busy Mombasa-Malindi-Lamu road that passes through Malindi town.
Maryam Hassan Abdalla told journalists that the auctioneers from Swift way Auctioneers demolished the house over disputed rent arrears amounting to Sh207,000 alleged to have accumulated since 2016.
According to Maryam, the house, which was built on plot number 505 in 1964 used to belong to her late aunt’s husband, Mohamed Saeed Bahanan, who died in 2001 at the age of 77 years and was survived by Maryam’s aunt Nuru Ahmed Bakari with no known children.
She said that her aunt died on June 10, 2017 and left the house in the hands of her siblings Abubakar Abeid Abubakar and Rukia Abeid Abubakar (Maryam’s mother), both of whom have since died, Abubakar in 2018 and Rukia in 2021.
“Immediately after the death of my aunt, a neighbor of Arab origin, who owns a popular restaurant in Malindi town, came and asked me to sell the house to him, but I declined because the house is family property and we were in the process of formalizing the succession,” she said.
She said the neighbor continued pestering her to sell the house, promising to give her Sh1 million if she consented, but she remained adamant, saying she would not take money to give away family property without consulting the other owners.
Unknown to her, a Mr. Saeed Mohamed Saeed Bahanan, a man claimed to be a son to the late Mohamed Saeed Bahanan, was declared the successor of the late Abubakar’s estate following a petition filed at the Kadhi’s court in Malindi and judgment entered on April 2, 2021.
The petition was filed by Said Awadh Dhaaban, who claimed to have been given the Power of Attorney and was heard and determined by Sheikh Twalib B. Mohamed, the then Malindi Kadhi.
“Upon reading the petition and perusing the annextures thereto, and upon hearing the petitioner from the evidence on record, the deceased’s sole heir is Saeed Mohamed Saeed Bahanan,” the kadhi said in his judgment and granted Mr. Dhaaban leave to sell the estate property and remit the proceeds to the heir.
However, Maryam says her deceased uncle left no known child, contending that if it was true her uncle had a son, the son would have at least attended her father’s burial 21 years ago or even sought to know where the remains of her father were interred.
She claimed that her uncle had confided with her aunt that he was unable to sire any children and that it was not possible that he had a son in Yemen, who eventually became his heir.
She suspects that powerful forces looked for an impostor to inherit the estate and disposes her of her only source of income and asked relevant authorities and local politicians to come to her aid.
“I believe this is a ploy to disposes me of this property because I refused to sell the house to my neighbor. I appeal to the relevant authorities and our political leaders to intervene and save me from this injustice since I have been depending on this house for my livelihood,” Maryam says.
On his part, Maryam’s brother Abeid Abubakar Abeid said he was offered Sh5 million to sell the house but declined.
“The two men of Arab descent said since my aunt was married to an Arab man, they would look for an heir in Yemen where the original owner of the property came from and buy the house,” he claimed.
Former Magarini Member of Parliament Joseph Kasena Yeri said Maryam had lived with her uncle and aunt since childhood and should be declared the heir since there is no known son born to the late Bahanan.
A letter from Shella Senior Assistant Chief Nicodemus Mwayele Ndundi dated July 28, 2022 lists Abeid Abubakar Abeid, Maryam Hassan Abdalla, Ummi Kadir Sharrif and Mwanamuua Abdalla as the heirs.
It was not immediately possible to get a comment from the buyer of the house as he is not known by the victims and the auctioneer’s staff were hostile to journalists and would not give any comments.