Kibaki inheritance row: Probe ties man claiming to be son to Siaya family

A report by a private investigator has stalled a case in which a man claims to be a son of former President Mwai Kibaki.

Jacob Ocholla was on the witness stand when his lawyer requested the court to postpone the inheritance dispute hearing saying that they had been served with a large volume of new investigation documents requiring additional affidavits.

Similar documents were also served to a woman claiming to be Kibaki’s daughter.

The report, prepared by private investigator Sebastian Omboto and commissioned by the Kibaki family, delves into the identities of both claimants.

According to Omboto, Ocholla’s birth record lists him as George Jacob Ojuka Ocholla. His mother is identified as Hilda Jane Achieng Ojuka while his father is named as Hillary Joseph Ocholla Ng’idi.

The birth certificate was reportedly issued on November 26, 1967.

Ocholla, on his part, maintains that he is Jacob Ocholla Mwai, claiming to be the eldest son of the late President Kibaki.

To support his claim, Ocholla submitted a report by Dr Zakayo Limili, a human pathologist, who concluded that Ocholla and Kibaki share striking phenotypic similarities suggesting a possible biological relationship.

According to Dr Limili, the two men have similar noses, foreheads, eyelids and lips. In his report dated January 19, he further noted that their cheekbones, cheeks, eye contact and blinking patterns also resemble.

“The similarity assessment by analyzing phenotypic features suggests that Jacob Ocholla and Mwai Kibaki are related,” stated Dr Limili.
However, in the fresh court filings, Omboto countered the claim, saying he traveled to Koru, Muhoroni and Ugunja sub-county in Siaya to trace Ocholla’s true family lineage.

“I met Assistant Chief Meresia Edda Akoth of Homaline Sub-location, who confirmed that JOO hailed from that area. The Assistant Chief also verified that she knows Jacob Ocholla as the son of the late Joseph Hillary Ocholla and Hilda Achieng Ocholla,” reads part of Omboto’s report.

Dropped name

Omboto further claims that Akoth told him she also knew Ocholla’s brothers, Jim Umira Ocholla and Charles Onyango Ocholla, whom he later met.

According to the investigator, the brothers said Ocholla was the sixth born in a family of 11 children and expressed willingness to testify in court.

Omboto alleges that Ocholla dropped his middle name, Ojuka, and later adopted the name “Mwai” after the former president’s death, purportedly to create the false impression that Kibaki was his father.

The investigator adds that Ocholla was listed as an heir to Hillary Joseph Ocholla in a letter written by the same Assistant Chief last year, a document that facilitated the family’s succession process.

Umira, who identified himself as Ocholla’s brother, swore an affidavit supporting investigator Omboto’s claim that the 67-year-old was not related to the late president.

He said he currently serves as chairman of the Board of Management at Dr Robert Ouko Primary School in Koru, Kisumu County.

Umira said that their father died in 1981 and their mother in 2014. He described their late father, Hillary Joseph Ocholla Ng’idi, as a career administrator who worked at Kenya Posts and Telecommunications, the East African Standard, the Ministry of Works and Supplies, the Ministry of Power and Communication and finally Bomas of Kenya, where he retired as Managing Director in 1981.

Their mother, he added, was a housewife, and the family lived in Bahati, Kaloleni and Industrial Area.

Umira also dismissed Ocholla’s claim that their father was a member of Karen Country Club, saying he only attended events there through invitations from friends.

“Specifically, there was not even an iota of suspicion that my mother could have gone out of wedlock to have Jacob Ocholla, the sixth child out of eleven, with the late Mwai Kibaki,” Umira stated.

He explained that their mother, Achieng, was a housewife with no opportunity to meet the former president, let alone conceal such a relationship, and later continue to have five more children with her husband. “Such conduct would have led to serious marital conflict and even divorce,” he said, adding that as children, they would certainly have known about it.

Former colleagues 

Umira further claimed that Ocholla’s bid for a share of Kibaki’s estate had unfairly painted their late mother as “a promiscuous woman,” bringing ridicule upon the family. He said villagers now viewed them as being born of “a lowly woman who was able to bed the high and mighty without her husband’s knowledge.”

“I am out to ensure that only the rightful beneficiaries of the late Kibaki share in his estate. My brother should be content with his upbringing. His name has always been Jacob Okuja Ocholla, and I’m surprised he now calls himself Jacob Ocholla Mwai, a name he adopted after the former president’s death,” Umira stated.

The investigator said he also traced some of Ocholla’s former colleagues, including Robert Mbogo Kinyua, who worked with him at Sirikwa Hotel in Eldoret, and Benjamin Bongo, who worked with him at Mombasa Beach Hotel.
In his affidavit, Kinyua stated that he served as general manager at Sirikwa Hotel between September 1988 and July 1990 and was a close friend of the late President Kibaki from their college days. He said he personally attended to Kibaki whenever he visited the hotel but disputed claims that Ocholla would receive the former President.
According to Kinyua, Kibaki never stayed in rooms 315 or 319, saying they were standard rooms unfit for a person of the President’s stature. He added that since he knew Kibaki well, he would have been aware if the former Head of State had a relative working there.
“I only read of Jacob’s supposed association with the late President from the media. I also noted that he had the name ‘Mwai’. I don’t recall anyone by that name. The name ‘Mwai’ would have struck me if that had been Jacob’s surname,” Kinyua said.

Bongo, on the other hand, said that he never saw Kibaki and Ocholla together whenever he visited the Mombasa Beach Hotel as the Vice President.

The Will

He said that the staff were also not allowed to socialize with visitors saying that he was surprised to hear that Ocholla was alleging he was Kibaki’s son.

“Personally, I had no information of any relationship between the late Kibaki and Jacob Ocholla. I was therefore, surprised to hear from the media, after the death of the late Mwai Kibaki, that Jacob Ocholla was now claiming to be his son and that his name was now Jacob Ocholla “Mwai”, claimed Bongo.

The battle pits Judy Wanjiku, Jimmy Kibaki, Kagai Kibaki and Githinji Kibaki against Ocholla. In his will, Kibaki had stated that Wanjiku, Jimmy, Kagai and Githinji are his only children and heirs.

Kibaki’s will, written three years after his exit from the government that he served for 10 years, meticulously details his preferred interment place, his executors, specific gifts, residues and how his grandchildren will inherit the wealth.

With four strikes of a pen, Kenya’s third president and an economist by profession, Kibaki directed that any amount of identified assets ought to be distributed according to the will and memorandum which would be addressed to the executors.

Kibaki also wished that his personal effects should be bequeathed to the Mwai Kibaki Foundation. According to the will, the effects that include his personal papers may not be disposed by the foundation.

According to him, he and his children would be shareholders in the firm but upon his death, his shares would be evenly distributed to the children.

He, however, had a caveat that executors would issue the shares only if each of his children agreed to be bound by a shareholding agreement.