Court gives Sonko 21 days to respond to claims by ‘ex-lover’
Former Nairobi governor Mike Sonko.
A court has granted former Nairobi governor Mike Mbuvi Sonko 21 days to respond to a child-support case filed by a woman claiming to be his ex-lover.
The woman claims Mr Sonko has neglected his parental responsibility to take care of their 15-year-old daughter.
Ngong Senior Principal Magistrate Pamela Achieng yesterday directed Mr Sonko’s advocates to file the response before a hearing is scheduled.
Mr Sonko’s lawyers had asked for more time to assemble a defence.
The magistrate adjourned the matter until June 23.
The woman is demanding monthly support of Sh448,450 from Mr Sonko for food and shopping, rent, security, salon costs, clothing, house help, entertainment, medical insurance, education, transport and utilities.
Pending the determination of the case, she wants Mr Sonko compelled to pay school fees of Sh86,000 and another Sh30,450 for other school-related expenses and uniforms, provide medical insurance and upkeep for the girl.
She also wants Mr Sonko compelled to clear an outstanding school fees balance of Sh37,000.
Through lawyer Dan Okemwa, the woman says the girl is in Form Two and has not reported back to school since schools reopened on April 26.
She says Mr Sonko has failed and neglected to provide for the child’s basic necessities such as education, good health, food, clothing, shelter, entertainment and medication.
Biological parents
“Mr Sonko and I are the biological parents of the minor,” says the woman, whose identity we have withheld to protect the girl’s dignity.
In court papers, she describes Mr Sonko as a person of means and that the girl is entitled to equal treatment and provisions like his other children.
“The unequal treatment has affected the minor psychologically as she does not understand why her father is abrasive towards her. Besides, the minor has been bullied and ridiculed in school because of her surname thus causing her emotional trauma and has indicated she wants to be transferred from the school,” the woman says.
She says she met Mr Sonko in 1999 and began a relationship that later turned into a romantic one. The relationship was on and off and they had the child on April 17, 2007.
The woman argues that she and Mr Sonko have equal parental responsibilities for the minor and an obligation to maintain the child.
“Mr Sonko has always been defiant and brazen to accept responsibility and assist me with the maintenance of the minor. He has over the years willfully withdrawn support towards the maintenance of the minor thus denying her what is rightfully hers forcing me to take full responsibility for the minor,” she says.
She discloses that she met with Mr Sonko in early 2018 in Maanzoni and he gave her Sh100,000 for the minor’s school fees and rent. She also says that when her mother died in December 2018, he offered financial support to her family.
She says she has no job and it has become extremely hard to raise the school fees on her own given the current harsh economic times.
“The Respondent is a politician and high-ranking businessman within the republic who lives a high-end life and is not willing to offer the minor the same kind of life while offering a high-end life to his other children, which is a clear indication of discrimination on his part,” read the court papers.
She states that although Mr Sonko knows he is the biological father of the child, he does not want anything to do with her.
“I have always been willing to have a DNA test done to prove the paternity of the minor, a fact which Sonko is well aware of as we have discussed the same on several occasions.”
