Former MP’s daughter sues three step-mothers in property tussle

 

Pinkam House-Nakuru town, one of the properties at centre of a succession dispute. [Harun Wathari, Standard]

A daughter of the late Nakuru businesswoman Alice Kahaki has taken a battle of family property to court.

Ms Elizabeth Wanjiku claims her four step-mothers took away her late mother’s properties.

Ms Wanjiku says her father Philip Kamau, a former legislator, irregularly distributed property to his four wives after her mother died on August 25, 1983.

Ms Wanjiku’s step-mothers are Lucy Wanjiru, Teresia Njeri, Margaret Damat and the late Winnie Waithera.

She now wants her mother’s assets separated from her father’s before they are redistributed, claiming that her father betrayed them. “I want to recover all my mother’s assets and distribute it among my six siblings,” she says.

Ms Wanjiku claims the father only owned five per cent of the properties the family has accumulated.

According to her, Ms Kahaki owns a slaughterhouse, the Pinkam House, a funeral home, several pieces of land and buildings in Nakuru town’s Kiambogo area, Rongai, Njoro, Bahati, Longonot, Nanyuki and Embakasi.

She is also claiming Sh23 million being held at the Family bank.

Testifying on Monday before Nakuru High Court judge Teresia Matheka, Ms Wanjiku said the father, who was holding their mother’s properties in trust, took advantage of her.

“He disinherited me and my siblings, including my two minor sisters, in his purported will dated June 13, 2009,” she said.

According to the daughter, Mr Kamau married her mother when he was a court clerk in 1951.

He served as a prisons officer in 1960s, a councillor between 1969 and 1974, and as a Nominated MP between 1974 and 1979.

Mr Kamau died on May 1, 2012.

During their marriage, Ms Kahaki invested in various businesses, Ms Wanjiku said.

Among the investments is the Alice Kahaki Wholesalers, which she ran from 1967 to her death.

Pinkam House, a two-storey building at the heart of Nakuru town, raised Sh500,000 in rent every month in early 2000, she said. “My late father selfishly and fraudulently named the Pinkam House after himself. The expression Pinkam stands for Philip Njoka Kamau,” she testified, adding that her mother was the major shareholder.

According to Ms Wanjiku, after the mother’s death, her father ran the wholesale for a year before it was shut down by the government. He allegedly sold the stock for Sh4.5 million.

She accused her father’s executor of the will of refusing to separate the properties of the late Kamau from that of the late Kahaki.

“The lawyer has watched as my brother, step-mothers, step-brothers and step-sisters enjoy my mother’s properties while we the true owners are left in the cold,” she said.

MsWanjiku said in 2009, her father and step-mothers ganged up to ensure she and her siblings do not inherit anything.

“Upon discovery, I and my siblings filed an application for revocation of the grant on March 24, 2009, seeking to disinherit my father,” she said.

When Mr Kamau died, Ms Wanjiku said they embarked on a process of placing cautions against all properties. She will continue with her testimony tomorrow.