The late businessman Nginyo Kariuki. FILE PHOTO | NMG A woman claiming to be a wife of the late politician and businessman Lawrence Nginyo Kariuki has joined the legal battle over the administration and sharing of his Sh4 billion estate.
Margaret Wanjiru has gone to court seeking to block the application by Mr Kariuki’s first wife Margaret Wangari Nginyo and four of her children –James Kariuki, Scholastica Kariuki, Jane Kariuki and Silas Kariuki – for permission to run the deceased’s estate as trustees and executors.
Mr Kariuki died on February 24, 2020, leaving behind a vast estate including real estate, farms, bank deposits and government bonds and a will that has been contested in court.
Brenda Nyambura Kiragu, who says she is one the tycoon’s children born of out wedlock, separately wants the court to nullify the businessman’s will of June 13, 2014 saying the document is either a forgery or the author did not have free will at the time of its creation.
Ms Wanjiru and her two children reckon that they have been excluded from the will, marking the latest high-profile succession dispute.
She has joined Brenda in petitioning the court not to grant Ms Wangari and her four children letters of administration or the right to implement the contested will.
“That we object to … the purported executor and executrices (which is challenged) to be granted probate of the purported written will, which is challenged,” she says in her petition. The late Nginyo Kariuki and Margaret Wanjiru. She has filed photographs of her and the deceased on trips to the United Kingdom to support her claim that the pair had a close relationship lasting more than three decades. PHOTO | COURTESY The letters of administration were to be issued after placements of the names of the executors of the will in a Kenya Gazette notice and the expiry of a 30-day period for no objections.
The notice was placed on the Kenya Gazette on August 21, triggering the objections from Ms Wanjiru and Brenda that has put on ice the court’s approval to the executors of the will.
In an affidavit, Ms Wanjiru says she bore twins Alex Ndoria and Austin Wachira with the deceased whose will of June 13, 2014 excludes them.
She says she has been a wife to Mr Kariuki since 1984 and that they were blessed with the twins on May 3, 1986. Ms Wanjiru says she bore twins Alex Ndoria […]