Third wife of politician

Ms Wairimu is the third wife of the politician, whose vast estate worth millions of shillings has been at the centre of a property struggle among his wives and children. She was thrown out of Mr Kirima’s Kitisuru home on Wednesday. Ms Margaret Kirima, the daughter, spoke to reporters outside the posh Kitisuru residence. She showed journalists copies of two documents purportedly used by her father, whom she said is recovering from an illness in London, to direct elders to return Ms Wairimu to her maternal home. One document was written by a British notary, on behalf of Mr Kirima, declaring that the tycoon was divorcing Ms Wairimu, while the other listed the reasons for doing so. Among the reasons read out was that Ms Wairimu allegedly betrayed her marital vows and got married to the Tanzanian witchdoctor. She is also accused of consulting the witchdoctor and sending money to him through the M-Pesa mobile phone cash transfer system. But Ms Wairimu dismissed the divorce claims, saying that even if she were to be taken back to her parents’ home, dumping her belongings at her mother’s home in the absence of her husband was not the right way. Ms Wairimu unsuccessfully tried to re-enter and sleep in the Kitisuru home on Wednesday night. In Nyeri, Mrs Elizabeth Wanjiku Ndei said the people behind the eviction of her daughter violated Kikuyu custom. “You don’t return an errant wife to her parents forcefully. I am very angry,” she said.

More drama unfolded at the ailing tycoon Gerishon Kirima's Nairobi home when police went there to look for a gun that had been issued to the former MP. The officers from Spring Valley Police Station arrived at the Kitsuru home on Wednesday night on learning the former MP’s third wife Teresia Wairimu had been evicted. Wairimu went to the police station and reported that strangers had broken into her house and that she feared the gun could land in wrong hands. Mr Kirima, who is allegedly in London for specialised medical attention, is a licensed gun holder. There was a standoff at the home when the officers, led by the local OCS, arrived but were briefly denied entry by Administration Police officers guarding the compound. It took the forceful entry into the compound by Wairimu for the OCS and six officers to get in. But they could not get into the house after Kirima’s daughters locked it and kept the keys. Maria, a daughter, shouted asking why the officers were there.

“I am under instructions to go with the pistol because its permit has been cancelled,” explained the OCS. But Maria demanded he and Wairimu leave the compound, promising to deliver the gun to the police station, on Thursday. The OCS retreated and left the compound after advising Wairimu it would be unsafe for her to stay there.

Gun taken

And Thursday morning, the officers went back to the house and picked the pistol with 15 rounds of ammunition without any resistance. The incident came after youths raided the compound and took away some property, which they said they would be used in instituting a customary divorce between Kirima and Wairimu. The armed youth, in the company of Maria, said they wanted to institute customary divorce according to Kikuyu culture and that they had been sent by Mr Kirima to take away some of her third wife’s personal effects. They took a bed, clothes, a mattress, a table, and shoes, which they delivered to her Nyeri home. On arrival at Nyeri, the group with a few old men, met resistance from locals who stoned them. It took the intervention of GSU personnel to quell the situation. The group dumped Wairimu’s belongings at her mother’s gate. Yesterday, Wairimu dismissed claims that she had divorced Kirima. “You know what it takes to be divorced and not the kind of crazy things that they did,” said Wairimu.

Maria and her sister Margaret said her father divorced Wairimu on August 26, on 15 grounds which included associating with a witchdoctor, denying his children access to Kirima, buying a house in Fedha estate, and failing to take him to hospital. “She is no longer allowed to step her foot here. It is only the old men who can resolve this issue. She is a divorcee,” said Margaret.