Controversy surrounds demolition of Deep West
By Mathew.Ndungu, February 28, 2022Controversial businesswoman Joyce Akinyi is counting losses after alleged hired goons invaded and destroyed her multi-million-shilling restaurant in Nairobi West in Nairobi.
Akinyi, known for her penchant to court controversy, confirmed last evening that some people wearing hoods and balaclava invaded her Deep West restaurant in Nairobi on Saturday morning at around 1am and started bringing it down.
A controversial business lady, who spent yesterday afternoon in the company of her lawyers, said the hirelings, who were with bulldozers and all sorts of equipment, arrived at the restaurant after all the patrons had left.
“I have lost millions of shillings through the destruction. It was a well-calculated exercise that seems to have roped in some people in the government,” Akinyi told People Daily by telephone.
Details of the circumstances surrounding the destruction remained scanty, with some sources intimating to People Daily that it may have been as a result of an ownership dispute between Akinyi and some original owners, who accuse the former of forging documents to acquire it.
But some other sources claimed that the property may have been brought down by some State agency on suspicion of it being used as “a centre for traffic drugs.”
Akinyi declined to comment further on the matter, instead requesting to call back later with more information, a promise that she did not honour. At the time of the raid, Akinyi is said to have been asleep in one of the rooms where she has been living after allegedly falling out with one of her partners in some of her property in Nairobi’s Lavington.
Heavily guarded
Yesterday, the property was heavily guarded by a group of youths armed with an assortment of crude weapons.
Efforts to get comments from police bore no fruit, as acting Nairobi county boss James Mugera, whom the juniors said was the only one authorised to talk to the press about the issue, was not picking his calls.
Located in Nairobi West, few meters off Langáta road, Deep West is described as a three-star hotel with a restaurant, free private parking, a bar and terrace.
Hotel offers a concierge service and a tour desk. The property provides a 24-hour front desk, room service and currency exchange for guests. Business lady was last in the news in 2019 when she was arrested by officers from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations’ Special Crime Prevention Unit and booked at Muthaiga Police Station for allegedly trafficking in drugs.
Police sources had indicated at the time that detectives had decided to lay ambush at the Deep West club after several suspects were arrested with sachets of cocaine in different parts of the city.
Akinyi together with another woman identified as Peris Omondi and a Congolese man Paulin Kalala Musankinshay were then charged with trafficking in the drugs worth Sh5,588,580.