The efforts of the divorced spouse of former Machakos senator Johnston Muthama to stop him from evicting her from his home have flopped.
The High Court ruled that Agnes Kavindu Musyoka, who divorced the politician in 1983, was living on his property in Mua, Machakos County, at his will but not as a wife.
“The picture that emerged was not that of a spouse but of a person accommodated initially as a mother of the respondent’s (Muthama) daughter,” ruled Justice William Musyoka, who heard the testimonies of the two parties and their witnesses.
According to documents filed in court, Muthama married Kavindu under Kamba customary law in 1975 and the couple had three children. The marriage was dissolved by the court in 1983.
Muthama then had a brief affair with her in 1996 which produced another child, a relationship she termed as a remarriage.
However, in his response, the politician dismissed the remarriage narrative and asserted that the birth of their daughter did not have the effect of reviving the dissolved marriage.
Kavindu moved to court in 2014 to stop Muthama from evicting her from the ‘matrimonial home’ on the grounds that she had a right to occupy it.
She claimed she had been treated inhumanely and deprived of basic facilities such as water despite the home having two boreholes.
“Since the water was disconnected from the house, I have resorted to using water from swimming pool for washing and bathing,” she claimed.
Kavindu told the court that her tribulations started after Muthama asked her to quit her job to take care of the family farm in Mua.
She claimed Muthama turned violent and stopped supporting her financially.
Kavindu’s dowry was said to have been returned when their marriage hit the rocks and in 2014, Muthama decided to settle his three families on the Mua property and asked Kavindu to vacate.