Many things are not adding up for the relatives of Engineer Robert Moses Magotsi regarding his October 11 death while living with his partner, Victoria Wanjiku, in Mozambique’s capital, Maputo.
That Saturday, he had gone on a morning run.
He was known to run 21 kilometres every Saturday. Besides running, that morning, he also spoke with his Kenya-based cousin, Dr Joshua Amwayi, over the phone. Barely an hour after the 11.04am conversation with Dr Amwayi regarding an investment they were to do, the latter received a call that Mr Magotsi had died after collapsing in his house. Mr Magotsi’s death happened nine days before his 55th birthday.
There are numerous questions that Mr Magotsi’s relatives want answered, ranging from the sudden disappearance of his Facebook account, cremation without their presence, why Ms Wanjiku has blocked some of them on chat and social media platforms, and Ms Wanjiku’s inclusion in a Sh6.65 million rand (Sh50.9 million) life insurance policy that Mr Magotsi had taken in South Africa.
Forty-two days after Mr Magotsi’s death, his relatives in Kitale, Trans Nzoia County, conducted a mock burial where they laid flowers at a spot where they would have buried his body – next to his late mother, Alice Limo – and erected a cross.
By that time, Ms Wanjiku had posted a video on Facebook showing the disposal of his ashes in the Pacific Ocean.
“According to his wishes, his ashes now lie in the sea. The serene, endless waters of Bali received him with peace. He loved the ocean deeply, and its beauty was reflected in the life he lived,” said part of Ms Wanjiku’s caption for the video posted on November 15.
Mr Magotsi’s family is incensed because, one, they say the cremation happened in their absence – even without Mr Magotsi’s biological children – and, secondly, they were kept in the dark regarding the disposal of the ashes in the Pacific Ocean.
Ms Wanjiku, in an interview with Daily Nation on November 28, said it was Mr Magotsi’s wish to be interred as soon as possible after death.
Before we delve further into the standoff, a snapshot of Mr Magotsi would suffice. He was an engineer-cum-entrepreneur who also had interests in poetry and lecturing, among others. He was featured in the Saturday Nation of October 14, 2023, after releasing his debut poetry book, “Troubled Heart”, using the pen name Sankara Berhane Sellasie.
In the author’s note of the book, he stated that the poems covered his interpretation of death, which he described as “the ultimate equaliser of all humans” and “an ancient embarrassment humanity has yet to contend with and conquer successfully”. One of the poems in the book was titled “More than a Wallet”. It said in part: “I know I am only, but a wallet/ You see me only, but as a wallet/ If I die, insurance will simply refill the wallet.”
The cover page of the book 'Troubled Heart' a collection of poems authored by Robert Moses Magotsi.
Photo credit: Bonface Bogita | Nation Media Group
Mr Magotsi was schooled in Ebusilaro Primary School in Vihiga County, then later Maseno School, and then the University of Nairobi, where he graduated in 1994 with a mechanical engineering degree. He took his master’s degree in engineering management at the University of Cape Town.
Later, he obtained a second master’s degree at the London School of Economics. He moved to South Africa in 2005, first as a lecturer, then afterwards got employed in various firms. He also ventured into the energy business. At the time of his death, he was the majority shareholder at South Africa-based Mwangaza Energy International, which was conducting multi-million-shilling projects at the time of his demise.
According to Dr Amwayi, his cousin, he had assets worth hundreds of millions.
“He had a total of 13 apartments. He had a home in Cape Town, a home in Port Elizabeth, three homes in a gated community in Port Elizabeth, and eight one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments. The 11 were rented,” he said. “We can put this asset value to a tune of Sh300 million.”
He went on: “Regarding his stake in Mwangaza, the solar power generation company they were setting up, the last time we spoke, he told me after they had done the feasibility studies, negotiated land, and now just about to take off, it was in the tune of Sh340 million.”
Mr Magotsi was married to a Kenyan woman, with whom they lived in South Africa. They had three children aged 18, 16 and 12. At the time of his death, they were undergoing divorce proceedings, and the Nation understands that remarks made by his estranged wife during hearings held in September did not augur well with Mr Magotsi, leaving him stressed.
“His family was living in Cape Town, and is still there, with him living in Port Elizabeth,” said Dr Amwayi.
A brief introduction of Ms Wanjiku will also be needed. She is a mother of four, also previously married, and Mr Magotsi’s family said they met in 2023, at around the time he released “Troubled Heart”.
Ms Wanjiku is a globetrotter who, in the final week of November, launched her book “The Soft Place after the Storm” in Nairobi. The title of that book is, in fact, referring to Mr Magotsi. She says she met him when she was broken and that he helped her recover from her wounds.
In the book, Ms Wanjiku introduces herself as “an author, speaker, and global wanderer”.
“Victoria’s entrepreneurial path began in organic beauty, where she built a thriving natural skin and hair care manufacturing business. But her impact didn’t stop at product lines; she developed a transformative model for community empowerment, training women in product formulation and equipping them to launch their own businesses,” says the book’s blurb.
She writes of the moment she travelled to South Africa with her four children, who are home-schooled, to live with Mr Magotsi.
“I had never known such companionship,” she writes in the book, recalling the early days of their romance. “Between waves and late-night tea, between morning drills and wordless hugs, I began to believe I was worthy of this love. The soft place had a name now: home.”
Dr Amwayi explained that the two, plus Ms Wanjiku’s four children, were living in Mozambique – which borders South Africa – because Ms Wanjiku had visa issues that had seen her barred from South Africa for a year.
South-Africa based Kenyan engineer-cum-poet Sankara Berhane Sellasie (real name Robert Moses Magotsi) displays his poetry book titled ‘Troubled Heart’ during an interview at Nation Centre in Nairobi on October 12, 2023.
Photo credit: Bonface Bogita | Nation Media Group
“They were buying time for the one year to elapse so that she re-applies for re-entry,” he explained.
Through numerous Facebook posts, Ms Wanjiku has explained her side of the story in the face of increasing questions from Mr Magotsi’s family after his death. She even appeared to explain why she blocked some of them.
She wrote in a November 2 post: “…some people need not only be blocked, they also need to be thrown blocks at, so, today, I’m throwing blocks at people who bring fitina [confrontations] to widows once the husbands die.”
She went on: “I had to put my grief aside to fight relatives who thought I had something to do with my own spouse’s death. I was already in pain, already destroyed and helpless and alone in a foreign land with 4 kids and a dead spouse, but I needed extra energy to fight these people. I’m throwing blocks at them and their likes.”
Dr Amwayi and his wife, Carol Mwatela, are among Mr Magotsi’s relatives who said they can no longer chat with Ms Wanjiku after she blocked them on WhatsApp.
Ms Pamellah Nyawade, a cousin of Mr Magotsi, said: “She’s working so hard to convince the world out there that this is the situation. Why are you working so hard to convince everybody that this [cremation] is what this man wanted?”
Mr Magotsi’s remains were cremated in Maputo on October 15, the day former Prime Minister Raila Odinga died in India . That day, Mr Magotsi’s step-brother, Jacob Motanya, who is based in South Africa, was scheduled to travel to Maputo. Ms Wanjiku had informed him that the post-mortem was to happen that Friday, and so he thought arriving on Wednesday was timely enough.
“My plan was to travel to Mozambique on that Wednesday, two days before the post-mortem...Only to get information on Wednesday morning from Lucky [Khumalo, Mr Magotsi’s business partner] that Victoria had cremated Robert. So, what I can say is that it was deliberate misinformation,” said Mr Motanya.
On Friday, we asked Ms Wanjiku to respond to that accusation of misleading the family, but she had not done so by the time of filing this report.
In the November 28 interview, she insisted that all who mattered to Mr Magotsi knew of his plan to be cremated or aquamated (dissolving of flesh using chemicals, pressure and heat).
“Cremation was done according to his wishes, which everybody who matters to him knows: his business partner, his best friend, even his family knows,” Ms Wanjiku told Nation.
“It is not out of the ordinary. Even me, my own mother was cremated. These things, when you want them to happen, you make the people around you know. And also the thing that made me feel it was uncalled for, people treated me as if I was a robot. I am the one who was with him. He died, I lost also. It’s my loss too, you know. But it’s treated as if I did not exist. And it doesn’t matter how many investigations you’re going to call. What I am saying right now, there was an autopsy report that said why he died, which they know. There was an investigation by Maputo DCI, and the findings were shared with them. So I don’t know now what else. What do they want?” she posed.
According to what Ms Wanjiku told the family and Mr Khumalo, the engineer had gone for a run while she went for a walk. Later, one of her children rang her to tell her that Mr Magotsi had collapsed after returning home. She could hear him groaning in pain.
She instructed her children to call a neighbour who rushed Mr Magotsi to hospital. She then found a car to rush her to the hospital, where she found him already dead.
“Because he died on his way to hospital, you needed to find out the cause of death. And he died of natural causes,” Ms Wanjiku told Nation.
Mr Magotsi’s family wonders why Ms Wanjiku refused to communicate with Mr Motanya after he landed in South Africa.
“He was not responding to any of my messages, any of my calls, anything. The only person who was communicating to me from Victoria was Lucky [Khumalo, the business partner],” said Mr Motanya. “So, Lucky seemed to have an open communication line with Victoria all through. Even when the cremation happened, it’s Lucky who told me.”
On Friday, the Nation sent an email to Mr Khumalo, touching on the fears from Mr Magotsi’s family that he might have been working in collaboration with Ms Wanjiku regarding the mysterious death.
His response was: “Out of respect for his family and the formal processes now underway, I’m only commenting on matters that have been properly reviewed.”
South-Africa based Kenyan engineer-cum-poet Sankara Berhane Sellasie (real name Robert Moses Magotsi) displays his poetry book titled ‘Troubled Heart’ during an interview at Nation Centre in Nairobi on October 12, 2023.
Photo credit: Bonface Bogita | Nation Media Group
“All business-related issues, including his shareholding, responsibilities and operational matters, are with my legal and accounting teams. Robert played a central role, and his passing requires a structured legal and operational review. That process is in progress. Until it’s complete, I’m not able to provide detailed responses, and I won’t speculate,” he added.
Mr Khumalo, in a LinkedIn post announcing Mr Magotsi’s death, stated that the two met at the University of Cape Town, where they were student leaders.
“That friendship deepened into brotherhood and ultimately into partnership. Together, we founded Mwangaza Energy International with a single conviction: that Africa’s energy future could be radically different, community-owned, equitable and transformative,” he wrote.
Mr Magotsi’s family says that it was Mr Khumalo who brought up the issue of the former’s life insurance policy – reminding them that Ms Wanjiku had since been added as a beneficiary and to replace the estranged wife – and the shareholding in the company.
Said Dr Amwayi: “He pointed out that Robert’s [estranged] wife, Beverly, had been replaced by Victoria on that insurance cover in 2023.”
“Victoria and Robert got to know each other in February 2024. However, in the insurance policy, Beverly was replaced in 2023. How?” he posed.
Ms Wanjiku, in our interview, said she is the only one of the four beneficiaries in the insurance cover—the other three being Mr Magotsi’s biological children. That, she said, would have brought her share of the payout to about Sh10 million due to exchange rate fluctuations.
“Why would I want someone dead for 10 million? It is good money, but it’s not money that is going to make me kill you for Sh10 million. If you look at what we are doing in one given year, our travels and all, what is 10 million?” Ms Wanjiku posed.
Ms Nyawade also raised the matter of Mr Magotsi’s disabled Facebook account that was under the name “Robert Moses Magotsi”.
After getting the news of the death, she said, she went to check his account to access photos.
“It had been disabled. That to me did not make any sense,” she said.
Ms Mwatela said: “I was really trying to follow up. I tried getting in touch with Victoria. She blocked me immediately.”
The explanation given for Mr Magotsi’s death is that he suffered a heart attack, but Mr Motanya is not buying it.
“If somebody has an active lifestyle and goes jogging about an hour and then comes back home, I mean, with that kind of heart condition, you can’t even move from your sofa to the dining table,” he said.
Dr Amwayi noted that Mr Magotsi was living with him in Kenya between August 16 and September 21 – his last visit to the country – and that he never showed any signs of illness.
“I would have seen him taking any kind of medication, or he would have mentioned it to me,” he said.
The family got from Ms Wanjiku a handwritten post-mortem report written in Portuguese. They don’t believe the document is genuine.
“It’s a handwritten note as far as I’m concerned. It’s not signed by anyone, it’s not stamped. It could be written by anyone,” said Mr Motanya.
“To rush saying that you are convinced that he had a heart attack, within two days you’re cremating him, why can’t you prove to yourself that that was indeed a heart attack? Let the experts do the post-mortem, you know, satisfy yourself with all the answers, make sure that you have people to support you, you know, relatives to come into the post-mortem and try and dig out answers, as many answers as you can, about this person’s death.”
The family also claims that Ms Wanjiku refused to open the door to Kenyans in Maputo who visited Mr Magotsi’s house when the news of the death started spreading.
The Kenyan embassy in Mozambique has yet to respond to our queries on the progress of investigations.
