The day the Late President Mwai Kibaki was stopped from attending a friend's wife burial in Nyeri

Few moments in Kenya’s political history are as personal and tense as when President Mwai Kibaki was stopped from attending a burial in Nyeri.

The funeral was for Wanjiku Kihoro, wife of former Nyeri Town MP and activist Wanyiri Kihoro.

Tragically, Wanjiku had spent four years in a coma after a plane crash that also killed one of Kibaki’s ministers.

During her long hospital stay, Kibaki, once a close friend of the Kihoros, never visited her.

This silence hurt deeply, especially since Wanyiri Kihoro had been a strong political ally and had even contributed to Kibaki’s presidential campaign.

When Wanjiku passed away, Kibaki planned to attend the funeral in Nyeri.

But Kihoro firmly rejected this.

In a bold public statement, Kihoro said, “If he could not visit her when she was dying slowly in the hospital, what was the point of visiting her when she was dead?”

On the day of the burial, Kibaki reportedly travelled to Nyeri and made several phone calls to Kihoro, pleading to be allowed to attend.

Kihoro stood his ground.

The president did not attend, and his absence quickly became national news.

This incident exposed the deep personal wounds behind political alliances.

The fallout marked a permanent rift between the two men and remains a poignant example of how personal actions can shape public narratives.