Shock as woman’s body exhumed in land row

Police officers oversee the exhumation of Esther Wambui’s body at Kariki village in Othaya, Nyeri following a court order. The body was moved to Mukurweini District Hospital mortuary. [PHOTO: MOSE SAMMY/STANDARD]

By MURIMI MWANGI

Othaya: Shock engulfed Kariki village in Othaya, Nyeri County after five gravediggers exhumed a woman’s body.

The five braved superstitions as they dug up the grave of Esther Wambui at the weekend.

Wambui, the court ruled late last year, was irregularly buried on the land, whose ownership she had until her death been contesting with an Othaya-based pastor.

Pastor John Kihara of Chinga Deliverance Church was for three years entangled in a dispute over the land he claims to have bought from Wambui’s kin. The dispute dates back to 2009, when the initial owner of the land, Ms Esther Kamuyu (Wambui’s sister) transferred its title to her only son Charles Macharia.

A few days later, the title mysteriously disappeared from a box where Kamuyu had safely kept it in her house. Ms Kamuyu consistently said she should not be buried without the land title atop her coffin.

The statement is said to have ignited unease after her death and it delayed burial for close to three weeks, prompting the intervention of the area sub-chief.

But even after her death, the search for the lost title deed is said to have continued.

In 2011, Pastor Kihara, armed with the title deed and transfer documents started fencing the land, which he claimed Macharia had sold him.

Wambui moved to court and filed a suit to reclaim the land she claimed the pastor had irregularly acquired.

In the suit, Wambui claimed that her brother suffered from mental illness since 1972 and could not have independently sold the land.

The case had been ongoing until October 3, last year when Wambui died while receiving treatment at Mathari Mission Hospital.

Wambui allegedly said she should be buried next to her mother’s grave on the disputed piece of land.

Her husband of 40 years, Mr Peter Njagi, immediately denounced her corpse over what he said was fear of getting entangled in an alleged curse.

Court directs

“My wife is gone because of this land and I will not sacrifice my life or that of my children,” he said.

Consequently, Wambui’s body lay uncollected in the morgue for close to two months.

Njagi later secretly buried Wambui on the disputed land on November 7, 2013. A few days later, Mr Kihara moved to court and filed an application for exhumation of Wambui’s body.

High Court Judge James Wakiaga granted the order on November 26. Her body was retrieved and ferried to Mukurweini Hospital Mortuary at the weekend.

At the end of the exercise, area OCPD Adel Nyange asked the village to pray. “If the court directs that we bring her body back, then I shall come and we shall still pray,” he said.