Bush Air Safaris Founder John Ndiritu Risks Losing Property Over Disputed Loan Claim

John Malogo Ndiritu, the founder and director of Bush Air Safaris Limited, one of Kenya’s most prominent private charter operators, is locked in a bruising legal battle that threatens to strip him of the controlling shares in his own company, after a Nairobi court became the arena for a ferocious war between two law firms over a professional undertaking tied to a multimillion-shilling aircraft loan agreement that has already spawned a Sh104 million judgment against him.

The dispute, simmering in the corridors of the Milimani Commercial Courts for the better part of six years, pits Oundo Muriuki and Company Advocates against Mbichire and Company Advocates in a standoff that cuts to the heart of Nairobi’s aviation business community, implicating luxury vehicles, a disputed aircraft, warring business partners, and the explosive allegation that a businessman who once had a customer charged in court is now warning that legal enforcement of an undertaking against him would constitute an invitation to blackmail.

A Business Empire Built on Borrowed Money

Ndiritu has, over the years, built Bush Air Safaris into a recognisable brand in Kenya’s private aviation sector.

The company, which operates from Hangar 16 at Wilson Airport in Nairobi, runs a fleet of over a dozen aircraft offering executive charters, bush shuttles, and scenic flights across the country’s game reserves and remote airstrips.

The Kenya Civil Aviation Authority as recently as May 2025 confirmed Bush Air Safaris Limited among the licensed operators in the country, a testament to the outfit’s longevity in a competitive market.

But the glamour of the aviation business masks a corporate story riddled with litigation. Ndiritu, who also owns Subarus Motors in Lavington, has over the years been a regular face in Kenya’s courts, fighting battles ranging from hangar tenancy disputes at Wilson Airport to criminal proceedings.

As far back as December 2018, Ndiritu was charged in a Nairobi court with causing physical harm to Moses Kinuthia, the very man now at the centre of the share transfer controversy, after Kinuthia visited Ndiritu’s Wilson Airport offices and the meeting turned violent.

The criminal charge arose from an incident on November 16, 2018, just weeks before the disputed professional undertakings were signed between their respective law firms.

The Loan That Started It All

The roots of the current courtroom war stretch back to 2015. According to court documents, Ndiritu entered into loan agreements with Moses Kinuthia dated 1 April 2015 and 3 February 2017. The precise purpose of those loans was to finance the purchase of an aircraft. As security for the borrowed money, Kinuthia took up a 51 percent shareholding in Bush Air Safaris Limited, effectively making him the majority shareholder in Ndiritu’s own company. It was a devil’s bargain: Ndiritu kept operational control, but Kinuthia held the ultimate corporate lever.

The relationship between the two men deteriorated badly enough that by November 2018, they were in a physical altercation. A month later, lawyers representing both sides were exchanging professional undertakings designed to govern the unwinding of the arrangement.

On 4 December 2018, Mbichire and Company Advocates, acting for Ndiritu, gave a professional undertaking to Oundo Muriuki and Company Advocates, acting for Kinuthia, that duly executed share transfer forms covering the disputed 51 percent stake would be released to Kinuthia upon fulfilment of certain conditions. A second undertaking, dated 21 December 2018, from Oundo Muriuki to Mbichire, confirmed Kinuthia’s resignation from the directorship of Bush Air Safaris and stipulated that letters and an affidavit of resignation would be held pending the full performance of the settlement terms.

The Deed of Settlement and Its Contentious Terms

The parties eventually formalized their arrangement in a Deed of Settlement dated 21 December 2018. The terms of that deed read like an inventory of a fractured business partnership. Kinuthia was obliged to remit Sh2.6 million to Ndiritu as the outstanding balance on the sale of a Range Rover Vogue. In return, Ndiritu was to provide Interpol SMV clearance documentation for a Mercedes Benz G Wagon. Separately, Ndiritu was to transfer Aircraft Registration Number 5Y-LOL to Kinuthia, who in turn would pay Sh2.5 million to cover repair and storage fees accumulated on the aircraft.

Ndiritu has told the court under oath that he fulfilled every single obligation under the deed. He says he paid Kinuthia Sh34,565,000 as a refund arising from the two loan agreements. He says the share transfer forms for the 51 percent stake were signed and are being held by his advocate, while Oundo Muriuki holds Kinuthia’s resignation letter and affidavit. On the strength of this, Ndiritu insists Kinuthia must now be compelled to formally transfer the shares back to him, restoring full ownership of his company.

“I believe that the parties have settled their part on the deed of settlement to warrant Moses Kinuthia being compelled to transfer back shares held as security by him,” Ndiritu stated in his witness statement before the court.

But there is a conspicuous crack in that narrative. An online search of motor vehicle records reveals that the Range Rover Vogue and the Mercedes Benz G Wagon at the centre of the settlement terms remain registered in Moses Kinuthia’s name. If those vehicles have not been transferred as required under the deed, serious questions arise as to whether Ndiritu can credibly claim he has honoured all his obligations. The implications are potentially devastating: a man insisting the other side must perform while the most visible evidence of his own performance remains stubbornly on someone else’s registration documents.

A Sh104 Million Judgment Drops

The stakes in this dispute are not academic. In a ruling delivered on 13 May 2024 by Justice J.W.W. Mong’are at the Milimani Commercial Courts, the High Court entered a staggering summary judgment of Sh104 million against Mbichire and Company Advocates, in the related suit filed by Oundo Muriuki in November 2022. The judgment carries interest at the court rate of 14 percent per annum from the date of filing, together with costs of the suit.

The court found that Mbichire, acting as Ndiritu’s advocate on record, had failed to file any defence to the claim brought by Oundo Muriuki despite having been served and having had ample opportunity to do so. Mbichire instead sought to consolidate the professional undertaking suit with the separate Sh104 million breach of contract claim, an application Justice Mong’are dismissed with costs, finding that while both matters arose from the same Deed of Settlement, they involved different parties seeking distinct reliefs.

The professional undertaking case, Miscellaneous Civil Application E813 of 2020, the battleground on which Oundo Muriuki seeks to compel Mbichire to return the executed share transfer forms to Kinuthia, was at the time of the May 2024 ruling part-heard, with Oundo Muriuki’s side having already testified and closed their case. The court directed that suit to proceed to full trial.

It is in the defence of that very suit that Ndiritu swore his witness statement, opposing the application as unfounded, unjust, an evil and a source of unjust enrichment. He warned the court that granting the application would expose him to potential blackmail, a word that speaks volumes about how bitterly contested this matter has become and how high the personal stakes feel for the man whose company hangs in the balance.

Wilson Airport: A Venue of Recurring Battles

For Ndiritu, Wilson Airport has been less a place of business than a theatre of perpetual conflict. Beyond the current share dispute and the 2018 criminal proceedings involving Kinuthia, Ndiritu in 2020 found himself battling eviction from the very hangar where Bush Air Safaris operates. Italian national Enrica Forno and the Kenya Airports Authority served him with a seven-day notice to vacate Hangar 16, citing rent arrears amounting to Sh12.5 million covering several years. Ndiritu, still represented by Mbichire and Advocates, raced to court and obtained an injunction from Environment and Land Court Justice Benard Eboso, who barred the eviction pending the resumption of the Business Premises Rent Tribunal.

Forno told the court that Ndiritu had issued her a bouncing cheque and had been dishonouring the terms of their oral rent agreement, under which he was supposed to pay Sh2.2 million annually in two instalments. A flavour of the chaos that seemingly attends Ndiritu’s business dealings: on the day the court granted the injunction and the police boss at Wilson Airport complied with the order, airport manager Joseph Okumu personally ordered Ndiritu’s team off the premises, claiming he had not received instructions from senior management, despite the legal department at JKIA having been served days earlier.

What Hangs in the Balance

If the professional undertaking suit at the heart of the current dispute is eventually decided against Mbichire and Company Advocates, and if the court orders the share transfer forms returned to Moses Kinuthia, the consequence is legally deceptively simple but commercially catastrophic for Ndiritu: Kinuthia would hold or be able to enforce a 51 percent stake in Bush Air Safaris, giving him majority ownership of the company Ndiritu built.

A man who borrowed money to buy an aircraft, offered up his company as collateral, fell out with his financier so spectacularly that they ended up in a criminal court, negotiated a deed of settlement laden with luxury vehicles and aircraft transfer clauses, and then watched his own lawyers face a Sh104 million judgment, now stands at the precipice of losing the business that is his life’s work.

Ndiritu insists he has paid. He insists the other side must now perform. But motor vehicle registration records do not lie, and courts tend to demand more than assertions.