Woman faked marriage in bitter fight for city property

A woman lied that she was married to another man in order to eject her legitimate husband from their matrimonial property.

Mary Nyambura, who was married to Paul Ogari in 1986 in a come-we-stay relationship, weaved a deceitful tale in a bid to secure sole ownership of their house in Dagoretti, Nairobi County.

Ms Nyambura told the court that she had been married to another man named Kangara Mwangi and hence could not have been married to Mr Ogari.

When she was asked where Mwangi was, she testified that he had died and had been buried on an unknown date in Kiambu County.

Three judges at the Court of Appeal found out she was lying after she failed to identify any relative of her alleged dead husband. She could not remember when Mwangi had paid dowry.

“This appeal is yet another rather astonishing example of the deception, greed and heartlessness that rules and chills the human heart as couples coldly contend for property where once love was thought to thrive and thrill,” Court of Appeal judges Patrick Kiage, Fatuma Sichale and Philip Waki observed.

Ogari worked at Tetra Pak while his estranged wife sold used polythene bags to farmers in Kawangware and Wakulima market.

The two bought the property in 1991 and decided to have it registered in Nyambura’s name as the initial owner was not keen on selling it to a non-Kikuyu.

The title’s name read Mary Nyambura Paul.

In her efforts to have exclusive ownership of the three-storey building generating Sh258,000 a month, she first filed a divorce case in the Magistrate's Court in 2011 and had her marriage dissolved.

She told the court that her husband had deserted her.

Armed with the divorce orders, and aided by policemen, she threw Ogari out of the property.

Ogari sought the High Court’s intervention in 2014 after he was informed that she was in the process of disposing of the property to a third party.

He, however, lost his case after Nyambura testified in court that she was married to a man named Kangara in 1974 but they parted ways in the 1980s. 

Nyambura told the court that she never divorced Kangara so she was his wife until he died in 2011.

The court heard that the reason she filed the divorce case was to block Ogari from sexually harassing her.

Although she had adopted the name Paul, she alleged that was her late husband’s name.

Nyambura referred to Ogari as her tenant, adding that he was just a house agent who collected rent on her behalf.

She called her sister, Teresiah Waithera, to testify in her favour.

Ms Waithera, however, contradicted her testimony on where Kangara was buried. She told the court he was buried in Nakuru. Waithera could not recall whether her sister was married to her alleged late husband and did not see him paying dowry.

Produced documents

Ogari produced documents showing that they bought the property at Sh100,000. He had receipts he was given when he applied for electricity supply and sewer line bearing his name. The judges said they did not believe Nyambura and her sister, noting that the husband was a figment of their imagination.

“From the evidence, the man Kangara appears not to have existed beyond Mary's assertions and use of that name,” the judges observed.

The court ruled that both Nyambura and Ogari would get a 50-50 share of the contested property.