Machakos Woman Rep Agnes Kavindu Nduya’s hopes of sharing former Senator Johnson Muthama’s billions have been ruined.
High Court judge William Musyoka on Friday ruled that Kavindu, who divorced Muthama in 1983, has not proved that they remarried and started living together.
Kavindu had sought declarations that Muthama held certain properties in her trust and that she was entitled to equal share either in cash or kind to the proceeds of sale or transfer of any property sold, that the respondent accounts for all the income received from the properties, that an injunction be issued to restrain Muthama from evicting her from a property at Mua, Machakos county, among others.
She told
court she married Muthama under Kamba customary law in 1975, and they had three children with the marriage being dissolved in 1983.She claimed they remarried in January 1995, and cohabited at a property in Runda, Nairobi. She quit employment, at the request of Muthama to take care of the family farm.
“We got a fourth child in January 1996 during the course of the resumed cohabitation,” she said.
In November 1996, she moved out of the Runda home to the family home in Mua.But Muthama told court they did not remarry and accused the Woman Rep of non-disclosure. He said they married in 1975, by which time Kavindu had one child and thereafter they got two children.
The respondent confirmed their marriage was dissolved by judicial decree in DC No 5 of 1983. He subsequently obtained a custody order for the three children in 1991.
He said after the divorce, he married another wife, Joyce, and in 2008 he married Jemimah Mumbua Musyoka. Muthama said while Kavindu had the custody of the children he would keep dropping in to see them.
He maintained that the divorce of 1983 was still legal as even the dowry was refunded and the process of acquiring the Mua property started after the divorce.
Muthama said his former wife participated in his father’s funeral as a guest.
“She attended the funeral of my father not as a wife but as a guest, and posed for photographs as such and I never brought her under my medical cover but she took the advantage of having my daughter,” Muthama said.
Muthama accused Kavindu of using his name despite the divorce without his consent and her name got into his parliamentary medical cards without his consent.
He said he signed the forms but the details were filled by an assistant. And the applicant did not in any way contribute to the acquisition of the assets.
The judge said Muthama did not have any intention to remarry, but it was an arrangement to have one of the former wives or mothers of the children, being available to the children as at that stage in his life the respondent did not have a wife and he was living with about seven children.
Justice Musyoka said Muthama principal home was at Nairobi, initially in Lavington, and later Runda. The applicant was in the picture fleetingly in 1995,/1996 at Nairobi before being relocated to Mua where she remained with her young daughter.
The judge said that the picture appear to tally with the respondent evidence that he never remarried.
“In view of everything that I have said above, it is my conclusion that the applicant (Kavindu) was not remarried by the respondent after the judicial dissolution of their marriage in 1983. Her occupation of the Mua property was not in her capacity as spouse, but as a licensee at the will of the respondent,” the judge said.
He said “in view of these findings, I am unable to grant the orders sought in the application dated September 3,2014 and October 16, 2014, which i shall, and which i hereby do, dismiss with costs to the respondent.”