In 2010, one of Kitisuru’s prominent inhabitants grew frail, unwell, and ‘imprisoned’ inside his mansion’s towering metal gates, bringing the up-market estate into the spotlight.
Gerishon Kirima, a once influential municipal lawmaker and well-to-do businessman, was claimed to have been isolated from his family and friends. According to one of his daughters who talked to the press at the time, his third wife, Teresia Wairimu, had allegedly delayed much-needed medical attention.
Kirima had to be guarded through three doors, one of which was grilled. He couldn’t wear blue-patterned loafers since his feet were swollen. He needed assistance getting out.
In an emotional scene, a tearful Kirima, wearing a red jumper embraced his grandchildren; Gerald, Gabriel, Waruguru, Wairimu, Charlotte and Ruthie, while asking why they left him.
“Why did you abandon me? I feel like I’m dying,”asked amid tears.
They responded,”You are not dying dad.”
Kirima was a former MP for Starehe, Deputy Mayor of Nairobi, Assistant Minister in President Moi’s government, and one-time head of the Kenya Butchery Owners Association before dying in South Africa.
Investments
Gerishon Kirima was an example of a Kenyan who had really come from far to build his wealth. When he moved from Kinangop to Nairobi’s Bahati district in the 1960s, he started work as a carpenter at the University of Nairobi. He then relocated to Kaloleni, where his wife Agnes Waruguru sold Kirima’s handcrafted furniture outside their home.
The Kirimas entered into the meat business, the Njiru slaughterhouse, and real estate after years of painstaking saving.
He used to drive a battered 10-year-old Peugeot.
Kirima’s journey from Kinangop to K&S House in posh Kitisuru, 10 kilometers northwest of Nairobi, was long and tough. ‘Kirima & Sons,’ a business that managed his Sh750 million estate, is abbreviated as K&S.
Businessman Brian Yongo and former staunch Kanu politician JJ Kamotho are among the renowned residents of the area, which some pronounce as ‘Kitsuru.’
But did you know that Kitisuru is a mzungu perversion of Gitathuro, the Thika Superhighway river that snakes behind the Utalii Hotel?
One of the nine tributaries of the Nairobi River is the brown Gitathuro River, where Nairobi’s hoi polloi engage in substandard mpaararo.
