Mama Give us a Sign! New Twist as Burial of billionaire squatter stopped again

But why can’t the family of the Late Beatrice let her bones find peace which she could not find as she writhed in pain, abandoned for three weeks at Kenyatta National Hospital?

The answer to this lies between Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and Mombasa Road next to Cabanas. Before her death on July 30, 2014, Syokau had started the process of claiming 60,000 acres adjacent to the airport, which she contended belonged to her husband John Kathumba Makuthi who died in 1989.

The nightmare that haunted Syokau’s life and plagues her soul and bones in death was appropriately captured by Makadara Chief Magistrate, H M Nyaga who was presiding over an inquest to determine the causes and the circumstances leading to her death.

The relatives of the late Beatrice Syokau, are set to face off in the High Court on April 1 for the hearing of a succession case.  In life, predators shadowed every move she made and ultimately snatched her from her hovel. For four years the 89-year-old grandmother was held captive, duped into granting power of attorney to total strangers. 

Even in death, the childless billionaire squatter, Beatrice Syokau Kathumba is still a prisoner five years after she died.  Although the illiterate grandmother who never courted trouble in life, in death, controversy has hounded her and her relatives, who are embroiled in court battles.

A week after the chief magistrate’s court in Makadara found no evidence that she was poisoned and ordered the family to bury her bones and two of her step daughters have opposed plans to bury.

On Friday,  Litha Kathumbi Kathumba and Amina Mbula Kathumba went to court seeking orders to restrain a group that had already started making burial preparations in Mitaboni village in Machakos. This is the third time the burial is being stopped because ‘strangers’ were planning the ceremony

On March 22, Joseph Wambua, the chief of Mitaboni location in Kathiani wrote a letter permitting a group that has been organizing Syokau’s burial as long as law and order was maintained.

The sisters had complained that Sylvester Peter Ndeti, Kisua Musembi, Benson Mutua  Makau, and Regina Mwikazi were not related to Syokau but had hijacked burial preparations.

It is not clear when Syokau’s remains will be freed from Machakos Funeral Home, where they have been attracting a daily fee of Sh500 from July 10, 2014. The mortuary charges have now reached Sh900,000. The grave which had been dug remains open, five years later.  

“Like vultures circle a carcass in the wild, people who are not even relatives of the deceased took centre-stage in planning her burial which was stopped twice by the court. These people were only interested in what the deceased stood to gain in her court case in which she sought to be recognised as having interest in the land,” Nyaga observed.

Nyaga found it ridiculous that an illiterate old woman who at some point had been referred to a mental hospital was capable of donating power of attorney to a stranger.

“It is said by Dickson Wambua that the deceased donated to him power of attorney. I am not sure that the deceased in her old age and failing health had the mental capacity to lawfully grant such powers,” he added.

Nyaga noted that said that the land neighbouring JKIA in Nairobi “must be worth billions of shillings by today’s valuation” and that is why the strangers were willing to spend money.

A few days before the inquest was concluded, Litha and Amina’s petition to National Land Commission’s historical injustices department was decided where their claim for 60,000 acres of JKIA land was rejected.

The Land Commission however found that Syokau ought to have accounted for 50 acres she had been occupying near the airport as a squatter. Now the fight for Syokau’s bones and billions has shifted to the High Court where strangers and relatives are expected to face off on April 1, for the hearing of succession case number 980 of 2014.