- Yvonne passed away after battling cancer for the past seven months
- She wedded Wamalwa in 2003, six months before his death
Former Vice President Michael Wamalwa Kijana’s widow Yvonne Wamalwa succumbed to cancer yesterday, bring to an end the fairy tale love affair between the youthful hotel management and tourism graduate and the much older erudite and flamboyant politician who loved the fine things in life.
Yvonne, who has been ailing for the past seven months, recently moved to Nanyuki to stay with her sister Stephanie following prolonged treatment in India and at a Nairobi hospital. Yvonne died at her sister’s home in Nanyuki on January 25. Her remains were airlifted to Lee Funeral Home in Nairobi.
Her death evokes nostalgia, of her much loved husband, their beautiful daughter Chichi and the couple’s high society wedding, complete with vintage cars and morning suits, six months before Wamalwa’s death at 58 in 2003.
The wedding was attended by who is who, including President Mwai Kibaki, First Lady Lucy Kibaki and then Energy Minister Raila Odinga, the entire Narc Cabinet, making the wedding a triumphant home-coming bash to celebrate the ‘second liberation. Musikari Kombo was the best man, with Wamalwa’s cousin, Dr Mukhisa Kituyi, one of the groomsmen.
The wedding was not without humour, with Kitale Catholic Bishop Maurice Crowley, who presided over the ceremony, quipping, “We Kitale boys stick together!”
The alumnus of Cardinal Otunga Girls High School and Murdoch University (Terrorism and International Security) is a one-time Deputy Permanent Representative of Kenya to Habitat, an appointment effected by former President Mwai Kibaki after the death of her husband.
She was later appointed as the Deputy High Commissioner to Australia and Deputy Director, Parliamentary and County Government Directorate.
The single mother of two put the devastation of losing her husband behind and went back to school to study for a Master’s in Policing, Terrorism, Counter Terrorism and International Security in Australia.
In an interview with writer and freelance journalist, Yvonne Aoll, she said her new role as ambassador required “public speaking skills and thorough knowledge of Kenya’s foreign policy and areas where Kenya is innovating so that I can sell these convincingly.”
Yvonne grew up in a sheltered childhood where the simplest things like popping a toffee in her mouth brought great joy. She would not change a thing about the choices she made in life, she said.
Like her husband, she loved soft creature comforts, like a beautiful aromatic bath, good music- jazz, Classical and Gospel- and quiet time. She enjoyed hosting guests.
“Life is what you make it. You will inevitably encounter obstacles and people who want to pull you down. You will fall, that is a fact. But you have to pick yourself up, dust yourself up and start all over again. It does not matter how hard the fall, because with determination, you can learn from your falls and excel at the next hurdle,” she said in the interview which was published in The Standard.
In the past couple of years, Yvonne had been embroiled in court battles with her step children over the management of her late husband’s estate.
In 2015, Justice A O Muchelule directed the Public Trustee to take over forthwith and manage Kijana Wamalwa’s estate. He was persuaded to take these drastic steps because the estate was “being shared and/or wasted when there is no full grant applied for, or granted.”
Two years earlier, Justice Kariuki had faulted Yvonne for dealing with the estate as one would with personal property, adding that she had unknowingly or knowingly breached the provisions of the Law of Succession in how she handled the property.
Today, her voice, from an earlier interview, rings true: “I have learned that I should strive to forgive those who have wronged me because it is good for me and my soul.”
Quoting Desiderata, she said, “It is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy...”
