Parties in Kirima property case ordered to appoint administrators

The dispute over the late Gerishon Kirima’s multi-billion-shilling estate is far from over even after the High Court invalidated two Wills apparently signed by the businessman.

Judge Issac Lenaola said wrangling over the estate would continue because of debts and invasion of Kirima’s land by squatters.

“In the present case, whether or not I had validated one of the two Wills, the Kirima family saga would not have ended,” said Justice Lenaola as he directed the parties to each appoint an administrator to the estate within seven days.

The dispute pits Kirima’s last wife Teresia Wairimu and her step children led by Anne Kirima.

The judge said some property may have been transferred to some members of the family and to strangers in suspicious circumstances and asked them to each appoint an administrator to the estate within the next seven days.

He said the estate has huge debts owed to the Kenya Revenue Authority while the land in Njiru, the subject of several lawsuits, had been invaded by squatters.

A group calling itself Naridai Muoroto Self Help Group published a notice in the Daily Nation on Thursday last week claiming ownership of the 500 acres of land in Njiru, Nairobi.

The group said the land was a public property owned by the government of Kenya which settled the squatters there.

But the beneficiaries of the Kirima estate published a notice yesterday declaring the land was part of the estate of the late businessman.

Kirima, a former Starehe MP, died in 2010 aged 88 in a South African hospital.

He had been taken to London by the children of his first wife who forcibly removed him from his Kitusuru home where they claimed the widow had denied him medical treatment.

Justice Lenaola in his ruling said he was satisfied that Kirima was held for over two years in his first wife’s house and some of his children denied access to him.

Wairimu who is Kirima’s third wife and children started feuding over the property even before his death.

The family, one group comprising the children of the first wife and the other group belonging to the second wife and Ms Wairimu’s presented two separate Wills.

Anne Kirima presented a Will that was allegedly authored in London in 2010 by her late father as he was undergoing treatment.

But Ms Wairimu produced another allegedly authored in Kenya in 2006 but amended in 2008.

Regarding the first Will, Justice Lenaola found it strange that Kirima granted Ms Wairimu power of attorney over the estate yet she did not feature anywhere in running the business.

The judge further said in the will executed in 2006 and amended in 2008, the late Kirima failed to give power of attorney to his closest daughter Anne , making it suspicious.

Justice Lenaola said Mr Kirima had previously stated that upon his death, the estate be transferred to a Trust created for his children and grandchildren.

The court held that the late Kirima was too ill in 2010 to make a free will.