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Today in 2013, former Juja MP George Thuo died. Thuo collapsed while having drinks at a club in Thika. It is suspected that he was poisoned.
The late billionaire George Thuo famous for his Citi Hoppa buses also owned numerous properties in Thika town and a huge tract of land near Mang’u High School.
Besides Thika, he also had other properties in other parts of the country, including Nairobi.
But after his death, he left his family fighting over a will which, besides his wife and children, gave his long-time girlfriend a piece of property as inheritance.
Mr Thuo is claimed to have owned 130 acres of land opposite Mang’u High School, a land that stretches to Ndarugu coffee farm.
He was also said to own seven acres of land within the main Thika Roundabout, nine plots in Witeithie, a commercial building near Thika Police Station, a 14-acre piece of land near the Embu airstrip, and a residential house at Section 9 near Thika Tourist Lodge.
Court documents also read that the man owned many plots at Flame Tree and another commercial building in Thika known as Gee Tee House.
Thuo, according to court papers, had also invested in shares in 16 companies among them Nation Media Group, British American Tobacco, Standard Chartered Bank, Barclays Bank, Housing Finance and ICDC Investment Company.
He also had eyed insurance business as court papers read that he had shares in Jubilee Insurance, Pan African insurance and Brooke Bond Kenya Ltd.
But perhaps the most interesting part about George Thuo was his rivalry with William Kabogo - an epic battle that came to be known as Hoppa vs Chopper. It was so fierce that there was an instance when Kabogo flew his helicopter so low near a function organized by Thuo creating too much wind to mess up the food with dust.
From another angle, it was a supremacy battle between Mwai Kibaki’s PNU and the former Justice Minister Martha Karua’s NARC.
In 2007, Thuo vied on the Party of National Unity (PNU) ticket, won and rose to become the Grand Coalition’s Chief Whip in the Tenth Parliament.
But this was short lived after Kabogo filed and won a petition against Thuo’s victory in 2010. Thuo lost his seat which saw him ejected from the August House.
The parliamentary by-election that followed turned into a battle of supremacy between the government and Karua who had just quit as the Minister for Justice.
Uhuru Kenyatta, then the Deputy Prime Minister in the coalition government and also the area political king pin and other top politicians in government campaigned for Thuo while a moneyed Kabogo managed with little support from Karua. Thuo lost and chose a quiet life, out of the public limelight.
Thuo collapsed at Porkies Club in Thika before he was rushed to a nursing home then transferred to the Aga Khan Hospital in Nairobi where he was pronounced dead on November 18, 2013.
Club owner Paul Wainaina Boiyo alias Sheki, Thuo’s aide Christopher Lumbazio Andika alias Lumba, DJs Andrew Karanja Wainaina and Samuel Kuria Ngugi alias Visi, Ms Esther Ndinda Mulinge, a waiter, and a patron Ruth Watahi Irungu alias Atlanta were charged with the murder of George Thuo.