The reclusive persona of James Boro Karugu, Kenya’s second post-independence Attorney-General, faded away in the memory of many after his resignation from President Daniel Arap Moi’s administration on the morning of June 2, 1981.
Mr Karugu worked his way up, from Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions to Deputy Public Prosecutor and finally replacing Charles Njonjo as Attorney-General in April, 1980
Unlike his predecessor Mr Njonjo, and many other civil servants who resigned after falling out with President Moi, Mr Karugu did not venture into elective politics or revert to his initial career path.
Just 44 years old at the time, Mr Karugu shifted gears and set out to build a business portfolio, which has now become the centre stage of a titanic battle for control, and whose distribution will now be determined by the courts.
Mathara Holdings Ltd, a company he incorporated in 1974 and whose name Mr Karugu coined from amalgamating his wife’s maiden name, became the foundation on which he would put up a diverse business empire.
Four decades later, the lawyer-turned-businessman sat atop a sprawling empire, cutting across various industries like agriculture, real estate, financial services and securities exchange – a clever but careful spread of risks working like clockwork in a well-oiled machine that minted Mr Karugu billions.
His Mathara Holdings Ltd spawned 10 subsidiaries – Malewa Bay Investments Ltd, Kariama Enterprises Ltd, Shatana Investments Ltd, Nasico Ltd, Avenue House Ltd, Empire Consolidated Ltd, Prime Plantations Ltd, Malewa Streams and Services Ltd, Centurion Holdings Ltd and Marborough Energy Ltd.
Avenue House, a multi-storey building along Nairobi’s Kenyatta Avenue, is perhaps the most prominent asset in the Karugus’ portfolio, but by no means the most valuable in the estate worth billions.
In his portfolio lies over 753 acres of land spread across Nairobi, Nakuru, Murang’a, Kwale and Kiambu Counties, Treasury bonds worth Sh404.7 million, six vehicles including two Toyota Land Cruisers, shares in Kenya Power, Nation Media Group and Maramba Holdings – the company that owns the Maramba Tea Factory in Limuru.
For Mr Karugu a new chapter now begins, posthumously, as an epic succession battle for his wealth kicks off, entangling his children, senior advocates and a Kinangop-based pastor.
Interestingly, when consulting with one of his lawyers, Godwin Wang’ong’u in 2016, Mr Karugu started transferring his stake in various companies to his children.
“Bearing in mind what has happened during my lengthy illness I wish to protect my children from future litigation and transfer 80 per cent of my shares in both Centurion Holdings Ltd as well as Mathara Holdings to the four of them in equal shares of 20 per cent each,” Mr Karugu said in a letter to Mr Wang’ong’u dated October 27, 2016 and now filed in the succession case.
His wish did not come to pass, and the battle lines are now drawn.
On one side is Victoria Nyambura Karugu, the former Attorney-General’s firstborn and who has handled the family’s business affairs as CEO since 2015 when dementia started to get the better of their patriarch.
On the other side is Eric Mwaura Karugu (Mr Karugu’s third born), Peter Gachuhi (lawyer and partner at Kaplan & Stratton), Joshua Mwaura Kimani (a pastor that allegedly met Mr Karugu for the first time just three months before Mr Karugu was diagnosed with dementia), Eliud Karugu Gatambia (Mr Karugu’s maternal nephew), Jane Kabiu Gitau (an accountant and company secretary in Mr Karugu’s companies) and William Kimani Richu (a lawyer Mr Karugu’s firm sued for negligence after a land deal flopped).
At the centre of the dispute are two documents, a contested will and a settlement trust deed establishing the JBK Foundation.
The will, which does not indicate which law firm or advocate drew up the document, distributes some of Mr Karugu’s assets and shares in companies. The trust, if allowed by the courts to come to life, will then hold all assets not distributed in the will, and invest on behalf of the family.
In fresh filings before court, Ms Nyambura wants the High Court to determine that her father died without a will, as she argues that two separate forensic reports have already determined that the will and trust documents in the succession proceedings are forged.
The former Attorney-General’s firstborn says that one forensic report was compiled by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), while the second was by a private firm, Spectral Services.
The DCI analysed Mr Karugu’s signatures on the documents following an anonymous complaint on June 16, 2023 and which sparked an investigation.
Mr Gachuhi, Mr Kimani and Mr Gatambia are listed as the executors of the will and trustees of the JBK Foundation.
Ms Nyambura holds that Will does not list any law firm or advocate as its drawer, despite her father having several practitioners at his disposal for all manner of issues.
She adds that the document has multiple factual, grammatical and mathematical errors which are uncharacteristic of Mr Karugu, whom Ms Nyambura insists was a meticulous perfectionist.
Ms Nyambura claims that her brother Eric Mwaura is colluding with the other respondents in a bid to take charge of the estate-sharing process and gain unfair advantage from Mr Karugu’s estate.
She has also accused two senior Judiciary staffers – deputy registrar Catherine Nganga and Judge Patricia Nyaundi – of stalling conclusion of the succession proceedings and an investigation by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) into the alleged forgery.
On July 5, 2023, Mr Gachuhi, Mr Kimani and Mr Gatambia filed a petition for a grant of probate – permission for the three to execute the will they argue contain Mr Karugu’s last wishes – through Kaplan & Stratton Advocates.
The trio also filed an application seeking to have the copy of Mr Karugu’s will which they filed in court sealed and kept away from anyone who was not a party to the succession proceedings.
Ms Nyambura now argues that the application to seal the will, if allowed, could become an impediment to justice as DCI officers investigating forgery claims shall also be blocked from accessing the document.
Ms Nyambura has hired two law firms, Murgor & Murgor Advocates and Andrew & Steve Advocates, to oppose the petition.
Ms Nganga, the Karugu heir adds, wrote a letter to DCI officer, discouraging them from continuing with their investigation into forgery.
The letter, filed in court, advised the DCI to await the outcome of succession proceedings, a move Ms Nyambura now says was interference.
Ms Nyambura further says that Ms Nganga allowed Mr Gachuhi, Mr Kimani and Mr Gatambia to proceed with their petition despite only filing a copy of the will.
She argues that rule 7(5) and 51 of the probate and administration rules require individuals filing such petitions to deposit the original will in court.
Ms Nyambura has faulted Justice Nyaundi for failing to proceed with hearing the succession petition more than one year after it was filed.
Through Senior Counsel Philip Murgor, she wants Ms Nganga and Justice Nyaundi barred from involvement with the succession proceedings going forward.
In questioning the choice of executors and trustees of the JBK foundation, Ms Nyambura says none of the listed individuals was a close friend of her father’s.
She says Mr Gachuhi only met Mr Karugu once in the eight years preceding the former Attorney-General’s death. Ms Nyambura says she was present in that meeting and that nothing about becoming an executor of Mr Karugu’s will came up.
Mr Gachuhi, she insists, was not a close friend or confidant of the former Attorney-General and goes on to state that the lawyer did not attend her father’s funeral or memorial service.
She adds that Mr Gachuhi and Kaplan & Stratton, the law firm he works for, represented Mr Karugu in 2016 when Lucy Githire Muthoni claimed to have been married to the former Attorney-General and had two children with him.
Mr Gachuhi and Kaplan & Stratton also represented Mr Karugu in a similar claim by another woman, Wambui Mwangi, but were in that instance instructed to deny all claims.
The court papers show that Mr Gachuhi was instructed to seek a settlement with Ms Muthoni to the effect that the two were never married, but had sired two children together. In Ms Mwangi’s case, Mr Gachuhi was instructed to deny all claims, the documents further show.
On account of that representation, Ms Nyambura argues that Mr Gachuhi and Kaplan & Stratton have a conflict of interest which stops them from acting for any party in the succession proceedings.
In regard to Mr Kimani, Ms Nyambura holds that he met Mr Karugu for the first time in 2014, just months before dementia got the better of him.
For Mr Gatambia, she insists that her father only consulted him on farming-related matters and that being much younger than Mr Karugu, it was unlikely the tycoon would pick his nephew as an executor.
Ms Nyambura claims that the trio is intermeddling with Mr Karugu’s estate, with the help of her brother Eric, Ms Gitau and Mr Richu.
In her court filings, Ms Nyambura claims that when her father was awarded a posthumous doctorate by his alma mater, Bowling Green State University in Ohio, her brother Mr Mwaura allegedly tried to blackmail her.
“When the wonderful news was relayed to the 6th respondent (Mr Mwaura) (he) attempted to blackmail me by making demands that the event be postponed indefinitely, stating that the family would not accept the award on behalf of the deceased, nor pay for expenses for my travel to receive the award, unless I withdrew my objection (to the petition for grant of probate). I of course refused…,” Ms Nyambura says in an affidavit.
The contested will was in the possession of Ms Gitau. Ms Nyambura says that in 2015 during an engagement with one of Mr Karugu’s lawyers, her brother Mr Mwaura claimed that Ms Gitau was in possession of their father’s will.
When the lawyer requested for sealed copies of the document to be produced, Mr Mwaura allegedly reported that Ms Gitau had denied knowledge of a will.
After their father’s death, Ms Gitau contacted the children and called them for a meeting in which she presented them with copies of the document.
Ms Nyambura says it is unlikely that Mr Richu would be picked as a witness, as he and the family fell out after a botched land purchase plan.
The Karugus hired Mr Richu in 2014 to help them buy a piece of land for Sh85 million through Centurion Holdings Ltd. After the deal flopped, Centurion sued Mr Richu’s law firm for professional negligence, as the lawyer also filed an application seeking millions in legal bills.
Once when in primary school he escorted his father to court following a dispute with a woman accused of destroying the senior Mr Karugu’s wattle tree barks.
He watched lawyers Chamanlal Trivedi for his father and Pranlal Narshi Tank exchange legal arguments before the judge, with their mastery of the Queen’s English as suave as could possibly be.
They went at each other in court, but after Mr Karugu’s father lost the case, Mr Trivedi and Mr Tank now seemed to be the best of friends – they left the courthouse in the same car, chatting and laughing to their destination.
“I swore that one day I would avenge my father’s loss. When I returned home from the UK after years abroad and a law degree under my belt, I looked up Mr P.N. Tank, and made sure I took up a case with him and got my revenge,” Mr Karugu said in past interviews.
His intelligence led to study scholarships in the US and UK, paving the way for his entry into the legal industry, and leading Mr Karugu to his wife Margaret as they first met in Ohio.
Despite choosing a reclusive life after leaving civil service, Mr Karugu had some of the most-known influential politicians and businessmen among his friends.
Among his friends were former President Uhuru Kenyatta and his brother Muhoho, former Attorney-General Paul Kihara Kariuki, former Cabinet minister Munyua Waiyaki, billionaire businessmen Naushad Merali and Pius Mbugua Ngugi, retired judge Anyara Emukule, veteran Nation journalist John Kamau, and others.
Court papers show that his closest friends included celebrated author Amos Kiriro, Francesco Stame of Archer’s Group and Aloisius Nderi, son of former Director of Criminal Investigations Department Ignatius Nderi.
