Nakuru tycoon Kung’u family fight over Sh50bn estate

A new succession battle is threatening to tear apart yet another Kenyan family, and this time the battleground is the otherwise peaceful Nakuru County.

The estate in question is valued at Sh50 billion, left behind by business magnate Stephen Kung’u, who founded the famed Hotel Kunste in Nakuru Town.

The death of Mr Kung’u in April last year came as a shock to many Nakuru residents. They knew him as a friendly man who always added a personal touch to his ventures.

He often visited his numerous clubs in the county, wearing a winning smile and engaging cordially with patrons.

But now his name is being dragged into the dark history of Kenya’s succession wars. This is because he died without leaving a succession plan.
Mr Kung’u left behind an estate that is the envy of many.

It includes property and billions in at least seven different bank accounts. One of the accounts with Barclays Bank, Westlands, currently has more than Sh1.5 billion.

His two households are now locked in a court battle that threatens to bring down the empire he worked hard to build from scratch.

The businessman’s three daughters Naomi Wambui, Rahab Wamucii and Bilha Wanjiku by his second wife Joyce Wanjiru Kung’u, who died in 2009, are accusing their stepmother of sabotaging the businesses they were in charge of in an attempt to deny them their rightful inheritance.

According to court documents, Mr Kung’u’s widow Grace Nyambura and her sons Kansas Kagiri, David Ng’ang’a and Francis Ndegwa, and daughter Serah Wanjiku started interfering with her stepdaughters’ running of Monte Carlo Club and eventually kicked them out of what was their “only source of livelihood”.

They proceeded to change the name of the club to Terminal 2, and now Kansas Kagiri is collecting rent from the property “in cash” to avoid a paper trail.

COLLECTING RENT

The second wife’s daughters are also worried as their stepmother, who is already running Mr Kung’u’s other businesses and collecting rent from other properties, is planning to dispose of the club at a high price.

Other properties Mr Kung’u left behind include the Pivot Hotel in Nakuru, Parklands Villa, Luthuli House, Ambassador Court near Integrity Centre in Nairobi, blocks of buildings in Ngara Estate and dozens of acres of land in Nakuru, Kiambu, Nyahururu and Gilgil.

The second wife’s three daughters have gone to court, seeking to stop their stepmother, her sons and daughter from further interfering with the estate until a petition filed in September last year is heard and determined.

When they moved to the High Court in Nakuru on September 7, 2015, the three daughters also sought to block their stepmother from evicting them from an apartment in Hurlingham owned by their father.

Two days later, judge Janet Mulwa ruled that the children should be allowed to stay in the Hurlingham property.
She also ruled that Ms Nyambura, her sons and daughter should “not deal with Mr Kung’u properties or any part of the estate” until the full petition is heard.

However, the court did not make any ruling on a third request that all the money collected from the properties be deposited in a joint account opened in the names of one of the daughters, Naomi Wambui, and the stepmother.

The three daughters are now back in court because their stepmother, her sons and daughter seem to have ignored the six-month-old ruling.
Bahati MP Kimani Ngunjiri described Mr Kung’u as a hard-working man.

“He was an icon and one of the pillars of Nakuru, whose establishments will forever remain landmarks here,” he added.