Former President Mwai Kibaki’s family is in court over a wealth distribution dispute, in which one Jacob Ocholla Mwai and Ms JNL are claiming family members.
Ocholla and JNL had filed a lawsuit in order to compel Kibaki’s family to include them on the list of beneficiaries of the former president’s estates.
The petitioners asked the court to compel Kibaki’s children to take a DNA test to establish the veracity of their claims that they were sired by the former president and thus entitled to a share of his vast wealth.
Kibaki’s children on Monday, November 14, rejected any attempt to force them to have a DNA test in their response to a civil suit filed by Ocholla and JNL.
The two petitioned the court to order them, along with Kibaki’s four children — Judy, James Mark Kibaki, David Kagai Kibaki, and Anthony Andrew Githinji Kibaki — to undergo a DNA test to determine whether they are siblings of the same father.
Alternatively, Ocholla and JNL have petitioned the court to order the exhumation of Kibaki’s body in order to extract and collect samples for a DNA paternity test.
According to Ocholla’s lawyer, Morara Omoke, “there are no known DNA samples of Kibaki that have been stored in a data bank or any other facility,” so exhumation is the only option for a paternity test.
Kibaki’s four children, led by Judith Wanjiku, however, opposed a DNA test proposal to establish whether they are siblings with the two people.
Kibaki’s children have stated that a DNA test would violate their privacy and have asked the court to dismiss the request made by Ocholla and a woman known only as JNL.
The dispute erupted after a court-ordered mediation between the two parties failed, forcing Ocholla and JNL to return to court.
Ocholla and Ms JNL went to court immediately after former President Mwai Kibaki’s death and burial in April 2022 to claim a share of his wealth.
The two wanted the court to recognize them as Kibaki’s children and beneficiaries of his multibillion estates.
Kibaki’s lawyer revealed that the former president distributed his undisclosed wealth equally among his four children, Judy, Jimmy, David, and Anthony.
Kibaki, who died on April 21 at the age of 90, however, only shared his wealth within his blood line and excluded his children-in-law from his multi-billion shillings fortune.
