Wambui Otieno

Virginia Edith Wambui Otieno (1936–2011), born Virginia Edith Wambui Waiyaki, who became Wambui Waiyaki Otieno Mbugua after her second marriage, and generally known as Wambui, was born into a prominent Kikuyu family and became a Kenyan activist, politician and writer. Wambui became prominent in 1987 because of a controversial legal fight between her and the clan of her Luo husband Silvano Melea Otieno over the right to bury Otieno. The case involved the tension between customary law and common law in modern-day Kenya in the case of an inter-tribal union. The various legal hearings this case stretched over more than five months and the final verdict suggested that a Kenyan African was presumed to adhere to the customs of the tribe they were born into unless they clearly and unequivocally broke all contact with it. As Otieno retained some rather tenuous links with his clan, they were awarded the right to bury him, ignoring Wambui's wishes. However, Wambui inherited most of her late husband's estate. Wambui Otieno died on 30 August 2011 of heart failure. Much of the commentary about Wambui's ancestors and early life comes directly or indirectly from her autobiography, Mau Mau's Daughter: A Life History. However, its account of her ancestor, Waiyaki wa Hinga, has been criticised for attempting to make him a proto-Nationalist and inflating his importance, and her role as a scout and urban guerrilla may have been overstated. Wambui was the great granddaughter of Waiyaki wa Hinga, a Kikuyu leader who was arrested in 1892 by officials of the Imperial British East Africa Company and who died in suspicious circumstances soon after the arrest. Wambui claimed in her autobiography that he was murdered by being buried alive for opposing the violent seizure of Kikuyu land. However, Waiyaki wa Hinga had initially cooperated with Frederick Lugard of that company in 1890, and his quarrel with Lugard's successor was over the latter's seizure of some of Waiyaki's cattle without payment rather than Waiyaki's opposition to colonial land expropriation.