Jacob Ocholla: Kibaki's family has refused to recognize me as family, it is causing me emotional distress

Career hotelier Jacob Ojuka Ocholla, the 62-year-old grandpa of three who claims to be the late former President Mwai Kibaki’s biological son, has said he only became aware of his true parentage when he was 21. 

Schooled at the Rift Valley Academy and in the United States and Switzerland as a management trainee with the Hilton Group of hotels, Ojuka is urbane and eloquent; his English laced with a faint British accent.

In an exclusive interview with the Standard on Sunday, Ojuka said Mr Hillary Ocholla, the man he now calls “my adopted father” spared no expense in raising his children. Ocholla, a Makerere University graduate, was the Bomas of Kenya founding managing director.

“He was a loving and responsible father for whom family always came first. I had a wonderful and free relationship with him,” he said.

But upon his death on January 28, 1981, Ojuka claims his mother, Mrs Jane Hilda Ocholla, now deceased, sat him down and explained that Ocholla was not his biological father and that she was making arrangements for him to meet his real father.

“It was the most shocking thing I had ever heard. The news left me distraught with so many unanswered questions,” he said.

Three months later, he claims he accompanied his mother to the Hilton Hotel in Nairobi where he met Vice President Mwai Kibaki - the man he now calls “dad”.

“He addressed me by name. Remember he was close associates with my late adopted father, both having been students at Makerere. Indeed it is in Uganda that he met my mother when she was visiting my adopted father, Ocholla. At one time, the two were even neighbours at Bahati estate, Nairobi,” he said.

Thereafter, Ojuka claims he met and broke bread with Mr Kibaki countless times at Milimani, Mombasa Beach and Sirikwa hotels in Nairobi, Mombasa and Eldoret where he served as a manager. Their meetings were most frequent at Milimani Hotel where the then Vice President was a frequent visitor. Mr Kibaki even spent an hour with his late wife at a City hospital when she was stricken by cancer in 1994, he said. 

But Ojuka claims this access was suddenly cut off when Mr Kibaki became President in 2002.

“I was never able to get through his minders when he became President. After his retirement, I made numerous attempts to visit him at his Muthaiga home when he was ailing without success.

“And when he died, I was barred from paying my respects. My lawyer, Dr John Khaminwa, unsucessully requested the family and the Attorney General to intercede,” he said.

Sought for comment, Dr Khaminwa confirmed writing letters to the two parties.

Asked why he has chosen to make his parentage public now and not when Mr Kibaki was alive, Ojuka says that when they first met, the former President not only acknowledged that he was his biological father, but asked him to always respect him as a father and never do anything that would injure his (Kibaki’s) character.

He added that he has for 15 years sought the intervention of a senior Catholic cleric and a senior Judge (both now retired), engaged three sets of lawyers and met Mr Kibaki’s older sister, Mrs Esther Waitherero, to get the family to officially acknowledge him to no avail.

The Nairobian could not, however, independently verify any of these claims, or why Mr Kibaki made no effort to reach out to a “son” he had interracted with for decades.

“People may say I am mad, but I am of sound mind. For 21 years, I knew I was a Luo. Then for the next 40 years, I became Gikuyu. This lack of recognition (by the Kibaki family) makes me neither Luo nor Gikuyu, which causes me a lot of emotional distress.

“What I seek is identity, not because I resemble Mr Kibaki, but because he is my father. I have a right to my name,” Ojuka who speaks fluent Dholuo said.

Born on July 22, 1960 at Kaloleni in Nairobi, Ojuka schooled at Mariakani Primary School in Nairobi, Rift Valley Academy and Rift Valley Technical School before joining Hilton Hotel as a management trainee. 

After leaving the African Tours and Hotels, he moved to the World Vision as a Donor Relations Manager and, later, American NGO, Feed the Children International, as Country Director.

Currently, he runs a private sports business.