NAIROBI, Kenya- People’s Liberation Party leader Martha Karua has announced the death of her father, Mwalimu Jackson Karua, recalling how she and her siblings sang his favourite gospel hymn during a visit hours before he died.
Karua said she had travelled to Kirinyaga on Sunday, September 27, to see him. She was on her way back to Nairobi when she received news of his death.
“My siblings and I spent time with him and sang his favourite gospel hymn, never knowing it would be our last song together,” she said in a statement.
The former Justice minister said she was grateful for the time they had shared, even though she had not realised she was saying goodbye.
“We were simply grateful to sit beside him, to see him and spend that time together. I did not know I would soon be looking back on those moments with such tenderness, but I am deeply grateful to have them,” she said.
A father’s support
Karua remembered her father as one of her strongest supporters, a man who believed in her long before her achievements in law and politics brought her public recognition.
From her school days through the different stages of her career, she said, he remained proud, encouraging and firmly in her corner.
“My father believed in me long before I had achieved anything worth celebrating,” she wrote.
A teacher, Mwalimu Karua valued education, character and doing what was right. To his children, Karua said, he was a loving, generous and dependable father who passed on the values by which he lived.
She described his death as a profound loss to his children, grandchildren, wider family and the people whose lives he had touched.
“There is never really an age at which you are prepared to say goodbye to someone who has been part of your life from the very beginning,” she said.
Leaders send condolences
President William Ruto joined those mourning Mwalimu Karua, remembering his contribution to education and the generations he had touched through his work.
“We join Martha, the Karua family, relatives and friends in mourning this loss and honouring a life of service,” Ruto said.
Wiper Patriotic Front leader Kalonzo Musyoka, Siaya Governor James Orengo and Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru also sent condolences to the family.
“I will miss his voice, his counsel, his encouragement, and the quiet reassurance of knowing that he was there,” she wrote.
“To my father, thank you for believing in me, for standing beside me, and for loving me through every chapter of my life. I am deeply grateful to have been your daughter.”
