Independent Electoral Boundaries Commission’s Letangule mourns wife’s death months late

Thomas Letangule and his late wife Esther on holiday.

By Machua Koinange

Esther Kagwiria Letangule meant everything to Independent Electoral Boundaries Commission (IEBC) Commissioner Thomas Letangule. “She was an amazing, extraordinary woman who was warm and welcoming to everyone. I miss her.” The memories of their years together provide both pain of his loss and warmth. When he retires to the master bedroom, the lonely nights bring back wonderful memories and grief in equal measure.

He reflects on their pictures together laid out on his brown law office desk off Ngong Road and exhales: “Bwana nimeumia, my emotional life has been kaput.”

Letangule’s idyllic world came crashing down last April 10 when Esther died just hours after she had delivered their third child at a Nairobi clinic. The circumstances around her death remain controversial and shrouded in mystery.

Controversial because of the way the news was broken to him and mysterious because of the way her death was handled by the hospital.

Th couple’s romance and eventual traditional marriage came about almost by happenstance. In May 2006, Letangule bought a used phone from a friend. He had not transferred his contacts from his old phone to the new one before taking his new gadget on a test drive.

Strike rapport

Letangule then lived in Kileleshwa. He recalls: “I had put in my sim card but the old numbers on the phone were still there.”

Out of curiosity he started studying the old numbers and names. Several names struck him, so he went down the list calling some and hoping to strike a rapport.

It was about 10pm when he came across the name Esther Kagwiria. He dialed the number. “I had called one number before her and the woman on the other end sounded harsh. The conversation did not go well.”

“My name is Thomas Letangule,” he introduced himself. “You sound like a good lady, are you at home?”

“I am just about to go to sleep.”

Letangule responded by quipping that she sounded like a responsible woman. He intimated that he had received her number from their mutual friend.

Letangule thinks he must have done well in that ‘conversation of strangers’. “We agreed to communicate the next day, and did. We agreed to have tea, so I took her to Grand (now Laico) Regency Hotel. She brought a friend.” He made every effort to impress her and win her friend over in order to be in Esther’s good books. He found out she worked in the insurance industry and her family was from Meru.

Getting into her good books included strategies like buying Esther and her friend a gift each. So every time they met, if he bought a gift for Esther he would buy one for her friend as well.

Within a year, their relationship had slowly blossomed but Letangule had to work extra hard to win her. “She was a very strict woman and wanted to make sure she knew me properly before accepting me. I remember trying to convince her to come with me for the Law Society of Kenya retreat in Mombasa.
She turned me down.

“But I persisted. I worked hard to win her friends over.” Esther, he found out, was a self-assured woman who knew what (and who) she wanted.

His efforts paid off because they settled down together and were blessed with two children, Brigel Naserian, in 2008, and Warren Lebarichoi in 2010. Letangule went ahead to complete a traditional wedding, meeting with her parents in Igoji, Meru.

The traditional ceremony was completed with the handing over of a gourd, an Ilchamus (Njemps) symbol of plenty. “Esther was amazing in the way she took care of the children. She was focused on issues like diet. I would go to the supermarket and fill the trolley and go home.”

Esther would go through the items and announce to a bemused Letangule that she did not use this or that item. If it was soap, it had to be herbal, unga had to be from natural maize.”

Lentangule learnt quickly and started giving her the money to shop. Esther also settled in quickly and smoothly as a second wife and took care of their new home at Uhuru Gardens Estate. During lunch breaks from his busy workday in private practice or from the IEBC, he would dash home for lunch and take a friend. “If I called to say I was coming for lunch, she would ask: “How many are you?”

Letangule was building her a Sh30 million home in Runda and had just incorporated a real estate company with her as a co-director before the birth of their third child. Almost by a strange twist of fate, they both agreed that she should have the baby first and then they would roll out their company.

Letangule had also purchased five acres in Nakuru, neighbouring retired President Moi’s farm. “I was putting up a three-bedroom house for my mother. The property was complemented by chicken, cows and goats.

“We kept saying we didn’t want to rush into taking my mother there; the house had to be ready. Sometimes you build a house, decide to move in before it is complete and then later change your mind about finishing it.”

On Valentine’s Day this year, Letangule had walked up to Esther jingling car keys and revealing his latest gift. It was a sparkling Sh1.2 million mini-van, the same car she would use to take their children to a private school off Langata Road, having complained that the school bus was too early on some mornings.

Their third child was due in June. He says: “By March she could not drive, so I got a driver for her.”

On Wednesday, April 10, Letangule woke up early. He had a long meeting at the office. It was still early days following the General Election and the pace at the Commission was frenetic.

Since Esther had delivered their two children at Family Health Care before, Letangule felt it would be prudent to return there. That day, Esther had second thoughts.

“I think she wanted to change. But she did not know why. From various people close to her, Lentangule was able to piece together the final moments before she died. Esther, in the company of a driver, had dropped the children in school at 8am. It was the last time she waved them goodbye. At 8:30am the driver took her to the hospital for what was supposed to be a routine check up.

She entered the hospital and went to Admissions & Maternity on the first floor. “I don’t know if the nurse checked her blood pressure and thought it was too high,” Letangule  says. But she came back to the car and told the driver to go home, and promised to call him once she was ready to be picked up, maybe because parking was limited at the hospital. She did not call her husband.

“Maybe she assumed everything was routine. My phone was on silent throughout the meeting. If the hospital had contacted me I would have responded. They did not. All I know is that after my meeting at 1:30pm I headed toward my Ngong Road office.”

Letangule received a call from Esther’s driver while riding in the elevator to his office. The driver had apparently decided to return to the hospital on his own instead of waiting for Esther to call.

“The driver told me she had already delivered, but went on to say: ‘Mzee, mama ako hali mbaya (Mama is not in good condition).’ I asked him where he was and he told me.”

Frantic and worried

One of the hospital workers took the driver’s phone and told Letangule that his wife had delivered. According to her, the child was safe in the nursery and the mother was doing okay, says Letangule.

Slightly after 2pm Letangule, accompanied by two friends, decided to go to the hospital to see his wife and the newborn. But the traffic along Ngong Road snaking its way towards town was a nightmare and they were marooned on the Upper Hill Road streaming into Uhuru Highway. At 4:33pm, according to the phone log, he received a call. It was the hospital.

 “They asked if they could refer Esther to another hospital. I told them to take her to Nairobi Hospital if the situation was serious. They told me it was serious, and asked to take her to Nairobi West Hospital.” Now frantic and worried, Letangule told the caller to take her there, as he was on his way. Lentangule had to navigate a labyrinth of traffic as a drizzle had graduated to torrential rain. The phone rang again. It was the hospital. They told him not to go to Nairobi West Hospital but instead to head straight for Family Hospital.  Puzzled, Letangule asked; “Why are you telling me to come to Family?” They replied, “Things are okay, just come here.”

Terribly wrong

He sensed something was terribly wrong as the car crawled into Madaraka area. Now very worried and still stuck in traffic, Letangule got out of the car with one of his friends in tow and ran, literally, through the pouring rain towards the hospital.

They arrived drenched and from the expression on the faces of the hospital staff, Letangule sensed all was not well.

“We tried to climb up the stairs to the maternity ward but were stopped by staff. They told us to wait for the doctor.” He felt like he had slammed into a wall of silence and could only walk around in an impatient daze trying to get answers. The doctor finally arrived.

“I asked him what was going on.” After an awkward silence, the doctor announced to Letangule that his wife had died. “He told me they had done their best but it was too late.”

Letangule was taken to see Esther, now lying on a bed, lifeless. He walked out of the room, his whole being buried in an avalanche of inexplicable pain.

They then took him to the nursery to see his new baby. The cruel irony of the situation did not escape him - in one room lay his dead wife and in a different room lay the life she had given birth to. Letangule talked to a friend who advised him to report the matter to the police. He went to Lang’ata Police Station and returned with policemen, but the hospital staff disappeared. He arranged for his wife’s body to be transferred to a mortuary. It was the most devastating ending to a rainy day. But the  toughest moment was breaking the news to his children.

“I just looked into their eyes and told them Mummy had gone to heaven and that we would all join her one day.”

The children sensed their mother was gone when they saw visitors to the house praying over the next few days. “The bigger girl, Brigel, seems to understand what has happened. She tells me, ‘When I was with my mother who went to heaven, we used to do this…’ or sometimes she wears her mother’s shoes,” says Letangule.

The hard part: The children know their mother went to hospital to have a baby. They see the baby but their mother never returned. Letangule named the baby girl Esther Namunyak, in his wife’s memory.

“This could have been avoided. I never expected it would happen to me. I hear about death from other people.”