Among 41 children, Susan Kihika was her late dad's favourite

In a six-page letter that was at the centre of a fight for the late Nakuru East MP Kihika Kimani’s estate, Kimani praised his daughter Susan, saying she is the daughter he loves most.

A handwritten letter dated October 28,1002 attached to a Nakuru court file was crucial in the determination of who gets what share of his property valued at over Sh600 million.

Nakuru Assembly Speaker Susan Warura Kihika, who is among the deceased’s 41 children, was given 10 acres and described as a good girl. “This is the girl I love the most. She did me god in America (sic),” reads the letter on the first page.

Early last year, seven Kihika widows stormed Susan’s home in Engashura, accusing her of attemting to disinherit them.

Away from family squabbles over inheritance, Susan Kihika is said to be a refined reincarnation of her father. Ambitious and a political firebrand, Susan is slowly emerging as the “Iron Lady” of Nakuru County politics. Simply put, Susan is her father’s daughter. She is resilient. She is combative. She is resolute.

She is also charming and elegant. She is going places. In certain corners of Nakuru, some people already call her Madam Senator.

She was recently named in President Uhuru Kenyatta’s 61-member re-election campaign team, the only county assembly speaker to make the list and the only politician from Nakuru County.

The second child of Kihika Kimani and his second wife Alice, Susan attended Busara Forest View Academy in Nyahururu and Bishop Gatimu Ngandu Girls’ High School in Nyeri.

“Dad wanted us to succeed in our education. He followed our performance keenly,” the 1947-born says in an earlier interview with The Standard.

Susan went to the US after secondary school where she studied and practiced Law, rising to the position of a district attorney. After a 20-year stint in the US, she returned to Kenya in 2012.

“Politics was not in my agenda then.” She says of her entry into the country’s political arena in 2013 when she contested and lost the Bahati parliamentary seat. But people who know her late father had convinced her to run for political office and “continue my father’s political legacy.”

Susan is indefatigable- she never quits a trait she says she inherited from her father. “I think I got that from him (father). He was a man who never quit easily and was always a go-getter,” she says.

Losing the Bahati seat seems to have reinvigorated her. She threw her hat into a crowded race for county speaker, and floored 12 men to win the seat.