By Tonny Musisi
The High Court in Eldoret has invalidated a contested Will that had been attributed to colonial era paramount chief Kibor arap Talai, dealing a major blow to his second wife, Irene Jeptanui Talai, who had relied on the document to secure a disproportionate share of the late chief’s vast estate worth more than Sh3 billion.
In a ruling delivered by Justice Reuben Nyakundi, the court declared the purported Will dated February 13, 2006, as null and void, citing expert forensic evidence which concluded that the signature on the document did not match the authenticated handwriting of the deceased.
Chief Talai, who died on August 2, 2012, left behind one of the most hotly contested estates in the Rift Valley, with assets spread across Uasin Gishu and Elgeyo Marakwet counties.
His empire included expansive agricultural lands, commercial premises, vehicles, farm machinery, and multiple financial accounts.
The battle over the control of these properties has raged for nearly two decades, pitting two households against each other in a bitter succession fight.
The late chief was married twice. His first wife, Tapyotin Kibor, whom he wed in 1947, bore him five children. She passed away six years ago but had been the original petitioner challenging the validity of the Will.
The second wife, Irene Jeptanui, married him in 1987 and is the mother of three children. At the heart of the dispute was Irene’s reliance on the contested Will, which she argued had been validly executed by her husband.
According to her, the Will had distributed prime properties, including lucrative commercial land near Moi University, directly to her and her children.
The first wife’s household, however, maintained that the document was a forgery designed to tilt inheritance unfairly in Irene’s favor.
The case illustrates the long-standing challenges of polygamous marriages in Kenya, where disputes over inheritance often spiral into protracted court battles that divide families and stall economic activity linked to contested estates.
The turning point in the case came with a forensic report by Chief Inspector Daniel Gutu, a retired document examiner from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) headquarters in Nairobi.
His analysis, submitted on November 24, 2025, found glaring inconsistencies between the Will’s signatures and those known to belong to the late chief.
The forensic document examiner testified that after examining the signatures on the Will against authenticated samples of the deceased’s handwriting, it was his professional opinion that they were authored by different individuals.
