City Hall mogul Wilson Nahashon Kanani has suffered a significant setback after the Court of Appeal issued conservatory orders restricting his access to hundreds of millions of shillings held in various bank accounts, alongside properties valued at billions. The Court of Appeal has barred Kanani and five other individuals from selling the properties listed in High Court Civil Case No. E022 of 2023 until the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission’s (EACC) appeal is heard and determined. The assets in question include four luxury motor vehicles, an apartment in Nairobi, a house in Busia County, and a parcel of land in Naivasha.
Mr. Kanani, a public officer employed by Nairobi City County as a Development Control Officer II, earns a net monthly salary of KES 55,866.75 but is suspected of possessing wealth far exceeding his legitimate income sources. The EACC is seeking the forfeiture of KES 643,213,688.12 from Kanani and his associates, alleging it constitutes unexplained wealth. Investigations revealed that Kanani, co-director of Seventeen Forty-Nine Limited (trading as 1824, a popular bar and nightclub along Lang’ata Road, Nairobi), exploited his public office by funnelling county revenue into bank accounts held by his spouse and private companies.
The conservatory orders were issued after Kanani rapidly withdrew KES 48,003,527.47, which had been frozen in multiple bank accounts and earmarked for forfeiture following the High Court’s dismissal of the initial case against him. His bank statements showed substantial deposits from companies including Live Ad Limited, Firm Bridge Limited, Ikon Prints Media Limited, Parrot Concepts Limited, Sign Tech Enterprises Limited, and Mediamax Network Limited, into his accounts and those linked to his associates. For example, his private company, Willy Walla Limited, received KES 78,880,000 from Parrot Concepts Limited and Mediamax Network Limited over five years. During the same period, Kanani acquired an apartment in Nairobi valued at KES 6.5 million, a house in Busia County worth KES 11.2 million, and land in Naivasha valued at KES 3.5 million.
In a ruling dated March 28, 2025, Justices S. Gatembu Kairu, F. Ochieng, and A. O. Muchelule determined that the EACC had met the threshold for issuing an injunction pending the appeal. The court granted orders prohibiting the respondents from:
- a) Accessing or dealing with funds in bank accounts listed in prayers 2, 3, and 8 of the application, pending the appeal;
- b) Transferring, disposing of, or dealing with motor vehicles listed in prayers 4 and 10, and land titles listed in prayers 5 and 9, pending the appeal;
- c) Dealing with KES 898,000 recovered from the first respondent’s house, pending the appeal.
The application was supported by an affidavit from Abdulhamid Farooq Low, Deputy Director of the EACC, who detailed ongoing investigations into the respondents’ acquisition of unexplained wealth. The affidavit cited the issuance and extension of preservation orders during earlier legal proceedings. In a supplementary affidavit sworn on November 28, 2024, Low responded to the respondents’ claims, reiterating that the assets were suspected to have been acquired through corruption and emphasizing the importance of preserving them for a successful appeal.
