When the patriarch dies, the real war begins
They built empires spanning thousands of acres, commanded political influence that stretched from Nairobi to the North Rift, and left behind fortunes that most Kenyans will never see in ten lifetimes. But the deaths of Rift Valley’s most powerful men have triggered something their authority could never contain — bitter, drawn-out inheritance wars that are now playing out, in excruciating detail, before Kenyan courts. These are not quiet family disagreements. They are full-scale legal battles over billions of shillings, and the families caught inside them are being destroyed.
From the disputed will of billionaire farmer Jackson Kibor to the multi-billion-shilling estates of former MPs Mark Too and William Murgor, the pattern is the same: a patriarch dies, a will surfaces, and the family fractures. Courts are now ordering DNA tests, commissioning professional valuations of entire estates, and brokering consent agreements between widows, children, and claimants who say they were never acknowledged. The official narrative — that these men left behind orderly legacies — has collapsed entirely.
The Kibor estate: Sh16 billion and a will nobody trusts
Jackson Kibor died in Eldoret on March 16, 2022, leaving behind an estate his family values at approximately Sh16 billion. The will he left was supposed to settle everything. Instead, it detonated a succession crisis that remains unresolved at the High Court in Eldoret. By 2024, several of Kibor’s children — including Philip, Loice and Albert — had moved to invalidate the document entirely, arguing that their father lacked the mental capacity to execute it and that his signature could not be relied upon.
“At the time of purportedly making the will, the testator did not possess the required testamentary capacity, freedom from coercion, importunity or other influences,” the court was told. The allegation is stark: that the document purporting to represent Kibor’s final wishes was produced under conditions that made genuine consent impossible.
Standing on the other side of the dispute is Kibor’s youngest widow, Eunitah Kibor, who insists the will is legitimate and must be respected. “I am not against the mediation process. But we must respect the will of my late husband on how he wanted his estate to be distributed among all genuine beneficiaries,” she said. Daughter Loice has also expressed openness to court-annexed mediation, framing it as a way to preserve her father’s legacy rather than destroy it through prolonged litigation.
What hangs in the balance is staggering. The estate includes more than 3,500 acres of agricultural land in Soy, Moiben and Kesses, commercial buildings, rental properties across Eldoret, residential homes, motor vehicles, tractors and bank accounts. Kibor had 29 children. Every single one of them has a stake in what happens next.
The Mark Too settlement: DNA, daughters, and a decade of silence
For nearly ten years, the family of former Kanu nominated MP Mark Too — who died on December 31, 2016 — fought over an estate estimated at Sh7 billion. The dispute centred on Chepkoech Too, one of Too’s daughters, who sued his widows Mary Too and Sophie Too seeking recognition as a legitimate beneficiary and a share of the estate. The widows did not initially accept her claim. It took a DNA test conducted at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) to force the issue into the open.
Justice Robert Wananda declared Chepkoech a biological daughter of the deceased after the KEMRI analysis confirmed she and Arafat Bakari Too are half-siblings. “A declaration is hereby made that Chepkoech Too is a biological daughter of the deceased based on the DNA results obtained from samples taken from her body against that of Arafat Bakari Too, a known child of the deceased,” Justice Wananda ruled. Science settled what the family could not.
Last month, Justice John Chigiti adopted an out-of-court consent agreement, formally closing the dispute. Under the settlement, Mary Too and Sophie Too recognised Chepkoech as a beneficiary. She will inherit 200 acres of prime agricultural land in Uasin Gishu County and receive Sh15 million within 90 days in lieu of a house in Eldoret’s Elgon View Estate. The estate itself is vast — farmland in Kapseret, homes in Nairobi’s Muthaiga and Lavington, properties in Nakuru’s Milimani and Eldoret’s Elgon View, 19 parcels of land across Uasin Gishu, Nandi, Trans Nzoia and Nakuru counties, and interests in seven companies including East Africa Investment Trust and Charterhouse Investment Limited.
The Murgor ruling: 35 beneficiaries, 29 parcels, and sons who lost
The estate of former Kerio Central MP William Cherop Murgor produced one of the most consequential court rulings in the region’s recent succession history. Last year, the High Court in Eldoret ordered that all properties forming part of the late lawmaker’s multi-billion-shilling estate be professionally valued, sold, and the proceeds shared equally among 35 identified beneficiaries — his widows and children included. The ruling was a direct rejection of the position advanced by several of Murgor’s sons.
Former Keiyo North MP Dr James Murgor, alongside brothers Francis and Collins Murgor, had argued that their father had already gifted them certain properties during his lifetime and that those assets should therefore fall outside the estate. Justice Wananda dismissed their claims without hesitation. The court established that the estate comprises 29 parcels of land across Uasin Gishu and Elgeyo Marakwet counties, including prime properties in Eldoret Municipality, Kaptagat, Sergoit and Kapkoi.
At the heart of the family’s fracture is a gendered grievance. The Murgor sons stand accused by their sisters — led by Enid Murgor — of systematically sidelining women during the distribution of their father’s wealth. The court’s intervention has forced a reckoning, but the underlying tensions within the family are unlikely to dissolve with a single ruling.
DNA, a dead farmer, and a daughter left out for decades
More than thirty years after prominent North Rift farmer Kipyego Kogo Chepkwony died, a new succession battle has reached the High Court in Eldoret. The applicant, Edna Chepkoech Tanui, claims she is Chepkwony’s biological daughter through a relationship between the deceased and her mother, Rose Tanui. She says she has watched her father’s estate distributed for years while remaining entirely excluded from the process.
The estate administrators, led by the deceased’s widow Veronica Jepsuge Chepkwony, dispute her claim and opposed compulsory DNA testing on constitutional grounds — arguing it would violate the rights of the deceased’s surviving children and reopen a succession process that was concluded years ago. Justice Reuben Nyakundi was unmoved. He ordered the DNA testing, grounding his decision in a principle that cuts through the procedural objections: “The courts are for doing justice… and unearthing the truth and not for following age-old practices and procedures when new, better methods are available.”
Nakuru: a forged will, a blocked investigation, and a family still waiting
In Nakuru, the succession dispute over the estate of former Nakuru mayor Joseck Thuo Ngeta has taken on a darker character — one involving allegations of document forgery, institutional obstruction, and a criminal investigation that has been effectively stalled. At the centre of the dispute are Susan Wanjiru Thuo and her son Nixon, who say a forged will was used to advance succession proceedings before the Nakuru High Court, and that their attempts to prove it have been blocked at every turn.
The family, through rights lobby group Gaplink International, petitioned Chief Justice Martha Koome in March this year, seeking her direct intervention. Their core complaint is specific: officials at the Nakuru High Court Family Division have refused to release the original copy of the disputed will, which DCI detectives need for forensic examination. A government forensic document examiner has confirmed that only the original document can support a conclusive analysis. Without it, the criminal inquiry cannot proceed.
The contested will, according to the family, contains a series of irregularities — a beneficiary unknown to relatives, misspelt family names, omitted heirs, signatures that differ from page to page, a non-existent property, and misrepresented shareholding figures in a resort. The court previously ruled that the original will would only be released after the succession case concluded. That conclusion came in July 2025. The document, the family says, has still not been handed over.
Across the Rift Valley, the pattern holds. Powerful men built fortunes in silence, and their deaths have forced everything into the open — the secret children, the disputed signatures, the daughters who were never supposed to inherit, the sons who helped themselves early. The courts are doing what the families could not. The question is whether justice, when it finally arrives, will mean anything at all to those who waited longest for it.
