Court cases stand in way of Agnes from Sonko deputy list
CFC Life Assurance employee Agnes Kagure Kariuki and her colleagues celebrate after she was won the Agent of the Year award during the Association of Kenya Insurers ceremony at Intercontinental Hotel in 2009. PHOTO | NATION MEDIA GROUP
What you need to know:
- The Supreme Court held that governors are free to pick fresh nominees within 14 days to replace their deputies who resign.
- Governor Mike Sonko turned to his 1.2 million Facebook followers to help him pick a replacement.
When her name was mentioned as a prospective Nairobi deputy governor, Ms Agnes Kagure Kariuki started trending on social media.
Her admirers say she would be an apt replacement for Mr Polycarp Igathe, who quit in mid-January.
Mr Igathe’s exit created a legal problem since the Constitution is silent on the replacement of deputy governors.
Then last month, the Supreme Court, in an advisory ruling, held that governors are free to pick fresh nominees within 14 days to replace their deputies who resign, are impeached or die in office.
ACTIVIST
Governor Mike Sonko turned to his 1.2 million Facebook followers to help him pick a replacement – a move that drew attention to the list of candidates he named.
But it is Ms Kariuki who has received the most attention, sometimes for the wrong reasons.
A gender activist and insurance executive, Ms Kariuki has been voted Agent of the Year for seven years by the Association of Kenya Insurers.
And in 2011, she was featured among the Top 40 Women under 40 by the Business Daily.
SH100M PROPERTY
But a case in court over the ownership of a property in Karen is what her detractors are harping on.
She is also in court over another plot in Nairobi’s Umoja Inner Core, in which the court has called for a full trial to determine how she bought the property, which is also claimed by one Joel Munene.
However, it is Ms Kariuki’s claim that she bought property in Karen from the late Roger Bryan Robson for Sh100 million that has made her the talk of town.
Court records show that Mr Robson’s parents left him and his brother, Michael, properties in the name of Plovers Haunt Ltd.
WILL
But the formalities of transferring the company shares from parents to sons was never carried out, according to Guy Spencer Elms, the lawyer appointed by Mr Robson as executor of his will.
In his 1997 will, Robson left his estate to relatives and charitable organisations in Kenya involved in the environment, wildlife, health and education.
His main asset was a 5.2-acre property on Ushirika Road, Karen, and a half-acre plot with flats on it next to the Nairobi Hospital.
The property is estimated to be worth more than Sh500 million.
FORGERY
While Mr Elms, wanted to pass the Sh500 million estate to the Kenya Wildlife Service and the Kenya Forestry Service, Ms Kariuki is one of the individuals who have emerged as the owners of the property, having bought it from Roger Robson.
Last year, the Director of Public Prosecutions wanted to prosecute Elms for forgery in relation to the Upper Hill and Karen land but the National Land Commission said it did not find any forgery in the documents.
This matter has turned out to be Ms Kariuki’s Achilles’ heel as she fights to become one of the most political supremos in Nairobi and whether she survives or sinks depends on who Sonko listens to.
