Kiambu deputy governor’s step-siblings seek to exhume their father’s body

The first family of the late Mburu Kinani has moved to court seeking to have the remains of their father exhumed from the second family’s burial site, where he was buried.

The family accuse their step-siblings, including the Kiambu Deputy Governor Rosemary Njeri Kirika, of sidelining them by burying their father at their home in Gilgil, Nakuru County, secretly.

The two families have been in a bitter dispute, which was temporarily resolved on June 12, 2025, after Magistrate Gerhard Gitonga ruled that the body be laid to rest at his ancestral home in Gatanga, Murang’a County, beside the grave of his first wife.

However, the second family, led by the Kiambu Deputy Governor Rosemary Njeri Kirika, together with her siblings, moved to the Milimani High Court Family Division, which overturned Magistrate Gitonga’s ruling.

On September 16, 2025, Justice Helene Namisi ruled that the body of the late Mburu be buried at his second wife’s home in Gilgil, Nakuru County.

“The final resting place of the late Mburu Kinani shall be his farm in Gilgil, Nakuru County, next to the grave of his late wife, Magdalene Waithera Mburu,” Justice Namisi ruled.

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According to the first family, the second family and their step-siblings went ahead and took their father’s body on September 17, 2025, from Kijabe Mission Hospital and buried him starting at 1800 hours.

Not given chance to appeal

The first family, through lawyers Danstan Omari and Stanley Kinyanjui, argue that they were never given a chance to appeal the High Court ruling, which gave Rosemary Kirika and her siblings the green light to bury the body.

They now want the judgement delivered by Justice Namisi to be set aside and an order to be issued for the exhumation of the body of the late Mburu for them to be involved in his final resting rights at his ancestral home in Gatanga and as per the Agikuyu custom.

“That the judgement delivered and orders issued in High Court Family Appeal Case No. E094 Of 2025 – Geoffrey Nganga vs. Ides Wairimu Mburu & Others on September 16, 2025, by Justice Hellen Namisi, be quashed,” part of the orders sought read.

“That an order be issued that the body of the deceased, Mburu Kinani, be released to the appellants for interment at his ancestral home in Gatanga,” the first family states in the application.

READ MORE When they arrived at the scene, they were astonished to find a cooking pot filled with meat and some vegetables. At the scene, was a human skull and blood-stained clothes as well as the deceased's gumboots. Police interrogated the suspect on his father's whereabouts but he noted that he was also unaware as he was still searching for him. The rest of the missing body parts first spotted by the locals was found dumped in a sack and covered with stones inside Nithi River. One of the area residents who claimed that the suspect began digging the tunnel in 2017 stated that the suspect and his victim had an argument about the condition of the tunnel before he went missing. "The two had quarrelled after the man stopped his father from cutting the Napier grass around the tunnel," Johnson Mutembei a resident told a local publication. The suspect is currently in custody pending arraignment in court to face murder charges. "We have arrested a man who is suspected to have killed his father, cooked part of the body and hidden some in a tunnel," Muthambi Sub-County Police Commander stated.

The lawyers argue that in the High Court appeal by Mburu’s stepchildren, they had sneaked in new documents which were never availed at the Magistrate’s Court during the hearing of the dispute.

Mburu passed away on November 20, 2204, at the age of 92.