Johnstone Muthama: Row with former wife was political

Agnes Kavindu, and Johnstone Muthama

Elated after reclaiming his Mua Hills home from his ex-wife Agnes Kavindu, former Machakos Senator Johnstone Muthama now wants to convert it into a base for his political activities.

For five years, the two battled for the home on the slopes of Mua Hills, a battle Muthama claims was an extension of the Jubilee-NASA wars of 2013.

“I have taken over my home that was abandoned and renovations are going on as we speak. Once completed, anybody seeking to visit must be vetted. It will also be a meeting point for all the entire Muthama children,” he said.

Besides Kavindu with whom he has three children, Muthama has children with two other women. He has built Kavindu’s children a home 10km away. The five-bedroom home that sits on a 45-acre piece of land has a servants’ quarters, borehole and a standby generator.

“I am an African man who cannot wish away his blood. She could have come to live with our son because it is a home she could have used to be associated with Muthama indirectly,” he says.

He adds that he holds no grudge against the ex-wife “but she will have to live like all the other divorced women. She will not be the first or the last.”

Kavindu got married to the politician under the customary law in 1975.

They divorced in 1983 over irreconcilable issues and Muthama recovered the bride price he had paid to Kavindu’s father with the help of auctioneers.

After the divorce, they got a child.

In the court proceedings, Kavindu claimed around 1995 they remarried and started cohabiting again in Muthama’s property in Nairobi but the former senator had a different story.

She claimed she retreated to Mua farm to take care of the children and to develop the farm. She said Muthama later stopped talking to her and started sending household provisions through domestic workers.

In his defence, the politician denied cohabiting with Kavindu, adding that he only spent a night or two with her before she disappeared, only to hear later that she had given birth.

Muthama claimed she forced her way into his Nairobi home after giving birth and he later moved her to Mua.

Later, in 2014 when he wanted to settle all his children on the Mua property, he asked Kavindu to step out and move 10km into the other Mua property occupied by her son. Kavindu instead moved to a police station claiming she was being evicted from her home.