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Kiambu Deputy Governor caught up in legal row over her father’s burial
The first family of Mzee James Kinani Mburu has accused his second family of excluding them from burial plans.
A deputy governor has been sucked into a burial dispute involving her father who died five months ago.
Kiambu deputy governor Rosemary Njeri Kirika has been sued alongside her family in a dispute over where her late father should be laid to rest.
The first family of Mzee James Kinani Mburu, a polygamous man whose body has been lying at Kijabe Mission Hospital Morgue since November last year, wants him buried in Gatanga, Murang’a County—his ancestral home.
His second family, including Ms Kirika, has been accused of making arrangements to inter him in Gilgil, Nakuru County, without involving the first family.
Trial magistrate Gerald Gitonga has stopped the planned burial of Mzee Mburu pending determination of the dispute being heard by the family division of the High Court.
Agikuyu customary law
Lawyers Stanley Kinyanjui and Danstan Omari have also filed a case under a certificate of urgency seeking to have him buried in Gatanga.
Mzee Mburu died at the age of 90.
The first family has argued that under Agikuyu customs, a polygamous man is supposed to be buried at the homestead of his first wife.
In this case, they want him buried at the homestead of his first wife Phelis Wanjiru Mburu, where she is also buried.
His children Ides Wairimu, Joyce Muthoni, Hannah Wanjiku and grandson Antony Kinani Mburu have sued Charles Vincent Waweru, Rosemary Kirika, Alice Wambui, Geoffrey Ng’ang’a, Regina Muthoni and Patrick Karanja (clan elder), as well as other step children while seeking to enforce Agikuyu customary law.
The children were born in the 1950’s to Phelis and Mburu.
His body remains at AIC Kijabe Mission Hospital Morgue where he died.
