Gospel singer Alex Apoko aka Ringtone recently blamed foreign nationals for evicting him from a Karen property that he claims ownership.
The foreign national who evicted Ringtone from the Karen property turns out to be the son of the late powerful South Sudanese General Paulino Matip.
The late Paulino Matip was the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the South Sudan People’s Defence Forces (SPLA).
The general’s son Kokong Paulino Matip opened up about how the Karen property was grabbed while speaking during an interview with YouTuber Mungai Eve.
“That story disturbed us when we realized our property had been occupied by the said Alex Apoko alias Ringtone. In May we found out that somebody claims ownership of our property,” Matip said.
“I launched a statement with our embassy telling them that somebody is actually in our property illegally without our consent and the embassy advised us to seek legal advice from a lawyer that they actually recommended to us,” he added.
Matip said his family acquired the Karen property through the South Sudanese government.
He said the South Sudanese government bought the property for his late father as he used to frequent Nairobi while seeking medical treatment.
“And this is when we knew this said Alex Apoko was actually seriously claiming ownership of this property which we legally acquired in 2010 through the efforts of the government of South Sudan. [They acquired] the property for our father because he was a senior government official – the deputy commander in chief of the army. He was frequenting Nairobi a lot for medical checkups and he would stay in hostels for a long time and the government thought it fit that they get him a house here and this is how we acquired this property,” he said.
Matip said that his family lived in the Karen property from 2010 when they acquired it until August 2012 when his father died.
“Basically the land is ours we acquired it legally through the laws of Kenya. We have lived here from the day we acquired it in 2010 till the demise of our father 22nd of August 2012,” he said.
The general’s son added that his family went back to South Sudan following his father’s death and that the political strife in his country prevented them from travelling to Nairobi.
He, however, noted that they left a caretaker to oversee the Karen property.
“With the crisis that we had in our country most of us didn’t pay attention to the property that we had here. All we thought it was still under good management by whoever was actually managing it,” Matip said.
The South Sudanese national lamented that Ringtone subdivided the Karen property and rented it out after he illegally acquired it.
“He put the house on commercial rent. He was renting it out with nobody’s consent. He even did illegal structures, he has partitioned the house into so many parts,” he said.
Ownership row
Matip said that his family reported Ringtone to the Lang’ata Police Station for grabbing his family’s Karen property.
He claimed that the controversial gospel singer ignored police summons to appear at the police station and also failed to provide documents proving his ownership of the disputed Karen property.
The general’s son said he decided to move back into the Karen property after Ringtone opted to play cat-and-mouse games with authorities.
Matip noted that Ringtone raided the Karen property with goons hired from Kawangware shortly after he moved in.
“I think he got the information that South Sudanese were in your house, having called the other tenants they inquired if there were police with the South Sudanese that are in the house. This is when we realized that the information that she gave to the other tenant that there were no police that’s when he organized himself, went and hired some goons apparently I came to learn they came from Kawangware. They came bursting through the gate, all of them carrying machetes, metal rods and all kinds of weapons,” Matip said.
It was during the raid that Ringtone and others were arrested by the police.
