A petition by the children of former Attorney General James Boro Karugu seeking to be appointed their father’s guardian to manage the affairs of his multi-million-shilling estate has been withdrawn.
Mr Karugu, Kenya’s second Attorney General, died on November 10, 2022, as his three children sought to be his guardian to manage the estate.
In a recent ruling, High Court judge Stephen Riechi noted that the case was withdrawn following Karugu’s death, leaving his beneficiaries to proceed with the succession case.
“This matter, therefore, could not proceed as the subject in whose interest the petition was filed died,” said the judge.
In law, a guardian is a person who has been legally appointed by a judge to take care of a minor child or incompetent adult (referred to as a “ward”) with the authority to make decisions on that person’s personal and property affairs. Mr Karugu was a wealthy businessman and prominent coffee farmer in Kiambu.
He retreated to his farm in Kiambu County after resigning as the AG on June 2, 1981—15 months into the job. He was an influential figure in the Jomo Kenyatta administration after President Daniel arap Moi assumed the reins of power in August 1978 following the death of the founding father.
Separately, the family is still fighting in court over the distribution of the multimillion-shilling estate.
In his ruling on the petition for guardianship, the judge noted that other issues the Karugu family had raised in court on the succession had not been determined by the time the subject died on November 10, 2022.
Among the properties to be shared are nine companies, including Kariama Enterprises, Centurion Holdings, Mathara Holdings and Malewa Bay Investments. His children—Victoria Nyambura, Eric Mwaura and Rose Gathira—moved to court as their elderly father was ailing while accusing two women, Lucy Muthoni and Hellen Wambui Mwaura, of violating their father’s constitutional rights and falsely claiming to be his wives.
Ms Mwaura claimed to have been married to Mr Karugu under customary law while Ms Muthoni said she cohabited with the former AG since 1998 at a house he owns in Runda. She claimed that they met in June 2004 and married under the Kikuyu customary law and that her dowry was paid sometime in October 2013. She claims to have taken care of him when he became ill.
Ms Muthoni, on her part, claims to have met Mr Karugu more than 30 years ago and cohabited at Garden Estate before they bought land and built a home in Runda, which they moved into in 1998.
However, in the court documents filed by the law firm Hamilton, Harrison & Mathews, Mr Karugu’s children dispute the claims by the women, saying their father was only married to their mother, Margaret Waithera Karugu, who died in 2007.
“It is clear that the intention of the respondents in alleging that they are wives of the ward (Mr Karugu) is to pursue companies in which the ward has investments,” says the petition.
Before his death, there was protracted litigation, which included the submissions of DNA reports and the issue of access to the elderly man pending determination.
While seeking to be appointed his guardian, the children said their father had been diagnosed to be suffering from mental illness.
They sought to manage his welfare, which included caregiving, medical attention and his general welfare.
