Freedom hero Fred Kubai's widow sues State in Sh11m award dispute

Independence hero Fred Kubai's widow Christina Gakuhi being led to the Milimani Law Courts cells on October 29, 2014. [File, Standard]

The widow of Independence hero Fred Kubai, Christina Gakuhi has sued the Interior Principal Secretary in a bid to compel him to pay Sh11 million plus interest, in what could rank among Kenya’s most costly blunders by security agencies.

In her case before High Court Judge John Chigiti, Gakuhi argued that despite several reminders, the PS had defied a court order directing payment of the award.

Gakuhi had previously sued the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) for unlawfully holding her national identity card following an 18-year protracted succession battle waged by her stepchildren.

After Justice Chacha Mwita ruled that the family could not revive a case that had already been settled, through the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Gakuhi sued the DCI, arguing that the seizure and continued retention of her ID were unconstitutional.

The court awarded her Sh7 million in damages, in addition to the costs of the case.

In the fresh battle against the PS, Gakuhi said she wrote to him on August 27, 2024, requesting payment. However, she said she never received a response and the orders were not complied with.

“The respondent is mandated and has a duty to pay all claims against the Government ordered by the courts... but he has failed and/or neglected to satisfy the same,” she argued in pleadings filed by senior counsel Kamau Kuria.

In the succession dispute, Kubai’s children claimed that Gakuhi was a house help and not a wife, accusing her of falsifying a handwritten will that lay at the centre of the epic court battle.

The succession case between Gakuhi and the children of the former freedom fighter’s other four wives lasted 18 years before the Family Division of the High Court.

Although the DPP and the police retain the constitutional mandate to investigate and prosecute offences, Justice Mwita ruled that such powers must be exercised to punish and prevent crime, not to serve private interests in a civil dispute.

“To use one process to aid, or achieve a desired outcome in another process, is a clear perversion of the legal process,” the judge said.

Gakuhi was charged in 2014 with making a national identity card and changing her name from Christina Gakuhi Kiragu to Christina Gakuhi Kubai with intent to deceive.

She also faced charges of making a handwritten will dated January 19, 1991, purporting it to be a genuine will written by Kubai. She was further expected to plead to charges of allegedly forging her birth certificate and Kubai’s death certificate.

The dispute began after Kubai’s death in 1996, aged 79, triggering a bitter family feud between Gakuhi and the children of her co-wives.

Justice Luka Kimaru later terminated the criminal case, finding that the issues raised were the same as those previously litigated before the Magistrates’ Court and the Constitutional Court.

Justice Kimaru agreed with Justice William Musyoka that Gakuhi had validly inherited Kubai’s property. However, Kubai’s children — Sofia Muthoni, Rebecca Wangeci, Rose-Ann Grace and Lucy Mwangi — maintained that Gakuhi was never married to their father and had merely worked as a maid before allegedly forging a will bequeathing the entire estate to herself.

She argued that in the succession suit there was no evidence that she had forged the will or altered her identity to acquire the vast estate.

Justice Mwita agreed with submissions by lawyer Kamau Kuria, observing that the only lawful avenue available to Kubai’s kin was an appeal, not criminal prosecution.

Fred Kubai was jailed alongside Jomo Kenyatta and four others, popularly known as the Kapenguria Six, in 1952 for agitating for independence from the British.