Former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua and his brother Nderitu Gachagua who died in February 2017.
What was once hailed as among Kenya’s best drafted wills by one-time Nyeri Governor Nderitu Gachagua has become the subject of a high-stakes family and political dispute that has sucked in President William Ruto and his former deputy Rigathi Gachagua.
Nderitu, who was Rigathi’s elder brother, died on February 24, 2017 while undergoing pancreatic cancer medication at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London. He was in the fifth year of his first term as the Nyeri governor.
He left a will governing the distribution of his vast wealth to 21 beneficiaries. It was executed in 2018.
Lawyers have previously praised the will – signed a week before Nderitu died – for its efforts towards sealing loopholes that usually trigger family feuds.
“That will is studied at the Kenya School of Law as the most advanced will ever done in the republic of Kenya that has taken care of everybody,” the former Deputy President said in an interview on Friday.
Rigathi described the will’s philosophy as: sell everything Nderitu owned, pay his debts, then share the proceeds according to the percentages he laid down.
However, some of the beneficiaries are now questioning the authenticity of the will, given the time it was signed.
On Friday, a letter written to President William Ruto by five of Nderitu’s relatives emerged. The letter requests the Executive’s intervention to win back some of his properties. When the will was signed, the five wrote, Nderitu was seriously ill.
“His condition had catastrophically deteriorated to the extent that he was unable to see, let alone write or comprehend any legal document,” the letter said.
The document was signed by Margaret Nyokabi, Susan Kirigo (the group’s spokesperson), Mercy Wanjira, Jason Kariuki and Ken Gachagua.
Former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua.
“Your Excellency, with humility, our family specifically prays for: institution of an independent and impartial investigation… return of all irregularly transferred assets… and protection of the family from further intimidation,” they told the President.
Later on Friday, Rigathi pushed back, saying it was all a ploy by Dr Ruto to besmirch his name, pointing to the President’s recent comments on the matter.
“I’m a popular leader and Kenyans trust me. He wants to destroy my character and my integrity so that Kenyans stop listening to me. He has sent DCI [the Directorate of Criminal Investigations] to try to look for crimes I’ve committed in Kenya. There’s nothing. So, he has now gone to the family to tell them, ‘Come here; we can help you. All the things that were sold by the estate, you’ll recover,” Mr Gachagua told podcasters Mwafreeka Mwaf of Iko nini? and Sarah Mwangi of Thee Alfa House in an interview.
His message to the five is that they are on a wild goose chase.
“The issue of the late Gachagua was concluded. The estate has been distributed; it’s over. It’s a closed matter; there’s nothing remaining. Everything has been sold, and everybody has been given money. All of them have received. Nobody has ever complained. It is now nine years since he died. Why has this matter all of a sudden come out?” he posed.
Rigathi added that he was given a five per cent stake in the net earnings emanating from the sale of Nderitu’s assets.
“His will was the best. He made sure he took care of everybody. My late mother, she was alive. He left her five per cent. Rigathi Gachagua, he left me five per cent. His two wives, five per cent,” said Rigathi, noting that even other children from other marriages were catered for.
Manipulation of Nderitu's will
“When we sold Olive Garden, the ones for 10 per cent, got Sh50 million. The ones for five per cent got Sh25 million,” he said.
Rigathi noted that the larger Gachagua family was annoyed by the developments and that consultations were ongoing to make the will public.
“They will be very embarrassed when these documents come out into the public,” he said.
The matter of Nderitu’s will became a subject of public scrutiny during the 2024 proceedings that ended up impeaching Rigathi from his post as Deputy President.
Among the charges that Kibwezi West MP Mwengi Mutuse, the mover of the impeachment motion, fronted was manipulation of the late governor’s will to disinherit some of his family members.
The motion specifically mentioned Vipingo Beach Resort and Olive Gardens Hotel and Queens Gate Serviced Apartments, with the former said to have moved names and been owned by Rigathi’s two sons. Rigathi denied the claims in Parliament, saying as at October 2024, Olive Gardens had been sold to a third party, and the wealth distributed as per the will, and that Vipingo Beach Resort was still in his late brother’s estate, waiting to be sold.
The matter was rekindled by President Ruto when he fired salvos at his opponents while on a tour of the Western region in mid-March. Dr Ruto spoke of a character who “has gone to manipulate the will of his brother to disenfranchise and disinherit widows and orphans”.
President William Ruto (left) with Nyeri Governor Mutahi Kahiga during a church service at ACK St Paul’s Church in Othaya, Nyeri County on January 11, 2026.
The letter said that the reason the five were emerging now is to “ensure that the appropriate authorities are seized of the facts.”
She said the five family members remain largely inclined to a just resolution.
In his Friday rejoinder, Mr Gachagua said the five “have been conned by William Ruto and I really sympathise with them.”
“My brother wrote a will and gave his property to everybody; not just his wife or children alone. He gave his wife, two of them, and his children, four of them. He had other women in his life. He included them: two of them and their children. He left a piece of his wealth to all his brothers and sisters — a total of 21 beneficiaries. He left a will and said all his properties should be sold and the proceeds distributed to the beneficiaries in a formula that he put down in his will,” Rigathi said in an interview with the podcasters.
Rigathi added that the executors were lawyer Njoroge Regeru, the drafter of the will, Nderitu’s long-time friend Mwai Mathenge, and himself.
“[We had] instructions to sell all his properties, pay his debts – and they were many – and the balance distributed to the 21 beneficiaries in accordance with the formula,” said Rigathi.
He said it was political interests that were stoking the latest controversy about the will.
“He [Dr Ruto] told them to sign some letters,” said Rigathi. “Those are the letters that are circulating. I don’t care. It’s really nothing. It’s hot air. It’s politics. We’ll dismantle it when my brother turns up and we meet as a family. We’ll ask our lawyer to write back to the president and tell him to keep off our family.”
He added that the people behind the letter – his sister-in-law and four nieces – have agreed to be misused by President Ruto to play politics.
“If there was a problem with the family estate, you go to court. You don’t go to William Ruto. He’s not a member of our family. He’s also not the chief of this area. When you have a problem and you have no money to go to court, you go to the chief. If you have money, you go to court. This matter was concluded in court by consent,” he said.
In the letter, the five alleged that there have been irregular transfers of assets.
“Through intimidation, manipulation, and underhand methods, there have been relentless efforts to disinherit the immediate family… by procuring irregular transfers of assets, using proxies to defraud the estate, and forcefully acquiring property that rightfully belongs to our family,” they stated.
They said that they had initially chosen silence out of respect, patience, and hope that the issues surrounding the matter would be resolved quietly and justly.
“The prolonged nature of these challenges has left us with no option but to speak out,” they said, adding that they had submitted the appeal to the Office of the Attorney-General but had not managed to get feedback.
Firing back, Rigathi said he had information that the five had been ferried to State House on Thursday by a lawmaker from Nyeri County where the plot to open up the succession matter was hatched.
Democracy for the Citizens Party leader Rigathi Gachagua addressing journalists during his 'State of the Nation' briefing at the party offices in Lavington, Nairobi, on February 10, 2026.
“I hear one of the ladies has been promised some business opportunities. I hear they were also given some little money, which is okay because I don’t have money to give them,” said Rigathi.
“If they wanted to challenge the way they should have challenged it, but they didn’t. And they were given the opportunity in court before a judge. The judge asked, ‘So and so, are you satisfied?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘So and so, are you satisfied?’ ‘Yes.’ They should shut up and shut up forever,” Rigathi said.
But the five remained optimistic that the President would review their case and support a resolution, writing: “We remain hopeful that His Excellency will find time to review it and offer his support in resolving this matter.”
The letter writers also acknowledged the President for previously drawing public attention to the matter during his public rallies.
Ms Kirigo dismissed Rigathi’s assertion that the letter was drawn at State House, saying the family has never, directly or through proxies, met with President Ruto. She said there were efforts to reach the President in person but have encountered significant barriers that made it impossible.
“It is for this reason that we have now turned to the media as a means of ensuring that the full scope of our concerns reaches him and the relevant authorities,” she said.
Ms Kirigo noted that the family objective is to reverse the profound suffering and grave injustice resultant of disinheritance injustice in the family.
Ms Kirigo told the Sunday Nation that the decision to go public on the matter was a reaction to the use of intimidation, manipulation and underhand methods in dealing with the estate.
Follow our WhatsApp channel for breaking news updates and more stories like this.
