Busia man loses bruising court battle to bury mother on late father's land

KENYA: A judge has dismissed an appeal where a man was insisting on burying his mother on his father's ancestral land against the wishes of his stepmother.

George Makokha from Busia County had insisted that his mother had to be buried on his father's land even though she had moved out after her husband married the sixth wife.

In an earlier case, the judge ruled in favour of Benedetta Okwado, declining to allow Makokha to bury his mother on the land his stepmother says her late husband, Henry Osundwa, gave to her.

Mr Makokha had insisted burial rites for his late mother, Maximilla Wameyo, had to be performed on the land where her matrimonial home stood before she moved out in 1992. Okwado was Osundwa's last wife.

He said it was part of Luhya customs that burial rites of the first wife are done on her matrimonial home lest curses befalls the family.

However, Okwado told court that the said land had been given to her by her husband before he died and could not allow her co-wife to be buried on it, an argument the court upheld.

But a dissatisfied Makokha launched an appeal against the October, 12 2010 ruling, arguing that the burial rites cannot be performed on a home he had built for his mother, where she had stayed for 20 years.

It was said that the deceased's home was demolished when she moved out and Okwado's house erected. This meant that the deceased had no matrimonial home as claimed.

However, on perusing the appeal, Justice Justice Kimaru noted that the underlying argument was not on 'burial rites' as such but on the piece of land. This was after Makokha argued his stepmother had obtained the land from his father in fraudulent manner.

"The desire to perform the rites in Ms Okwado's compound appears to have been made with a view to advancing their claim over the said parcel of land. As stated earlier in this ruling, that is a different issue that will be determined at the appropriate time," noted Justice Kimaru.

Justice Kimaru brought the two-year fight to an end directing the burial rites to go on, but on other parts of the land not on the sixth wife's home.