Family raises foul play suspicions in death of Former Likuyani MP Kibunguchy

The family of the immediate former Likuyani MP, the late Enoch Kibunguchy, yesterday claimed that the politician’s death on Monday night was suspicious.

Kibunguchy, who served as MP for Lugari between 2003 and 2007 before coming back as Likuyani lawmaker between 2013 and 2022, passed away while receiving treatment at the Eldoret Hospital on Monday night.

But hours after his demise, his family, through his nephew Kelly Walubengo, claimed that the late Dr Kibunguchy might not have died a natural death.

Walubengo insisted that there was foul play in the death of Kibunguchy, who was a doctor practising in Eldoret and Likuyani.

Walubengo, who unsuccessfully contested the Webuye West parliamentary position in 2022, said initial tests confirmed that his late uncle presented with food poisoning before the condition snowballed into an array of complications, including blood clots, intestinal bleeding, infections and lung and kidney failure.

According to the family, Kibunguchy was placed in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at the Eldoret Hospital since Thursday last week, but his condition took a turn for the worse on Monday.

“The initial diagnosis was that Dr Kibunguchy came to the hospital because of food poisoning. We have been questioning the doctors about why food poisoning tortured someone for over two weeks. It resulted in endless blood clots and intestinal bleeding and several blood transfusions,” Walubengo claimed yesterday.

He further alleged, “Before we brought him to the hospital, ten days before he passed on, the situation refused to go away. We initially thought that we were dealing with conditions such as blood pressure, which we may have missed out on in his lifetime, but when the doctors came back saying that it was food poisoning, it raised a huge flag, and we began tracing back to establish where the food poisoning came from.”

He said the family was concerned with the aggressiveness of the food poisoning. According to the nephew, doctors tried to cure numerous infections for ten days, but they remained persistent.

“I have been in the political field, and I know it is a dangerous field out there right now, especially if you become vocal about some stuff. I’m just hoping that God called my father to rest naturally, but I strongly believe that that is not the case, and that is why we have requested the hospital to give us a postmortem as we make other arrangements so that the family is at peace with what brought our father down,” alleged Walubengo.

He added, “He had announced his plan to re-enter the Likuyani parliamentary race as a strong force, and as a family we strongly believe that there might have been some foul play and the case needs to be investigated and prosecuted.

“The lungs and kidneys kept on failing, and his blood count was continuously down, and we don’t believe it was not a normal food poisoning. We even felt sorry for the doctors because they were dealing with so many complications in Kibunguchy’s body.”

Kibunguchy’s brother, Johnston Walubengo, and the family tried their best to save the former MP’s life, but his condition worsened on Monday.

According to the brother, Kibunguchy developed difficulty in breathing on Monday evening.

“I went home thinking the situation would improve. At 9pm, I received a call from my niece, Caroline, who told me that the situation had further worsened. We quickly rushed back to the hospital, and we met a Dr Kituyi, who was attending to him, but the medic was not hopeful about his recovery,” he said.

He went on: “We sat around the hospital as members of the family came in, and at about 11:30pm in the night, our brother passed on. As a family, we are still in shock. Sometimes we feel as if it is a dream, and then when we sit down, we realise that the reality has hit us.”

Democratic Action Party – Kenya (DAP-K) leader Eugene Wamalwa Kibubguchy’s death comes when Lugari is planning to lay to rest former MP Cyrus Jirongo, who died in a mysterious road crash recently.

“The family has expressed wishes that the Kibunguchy’s postmortem be done in the presence of an independent pathologist so that questions are put to rest,” said Wamalwa.

He said in his last days, Kibunguchy had joined his party and was planning to make a comeback to national politics through the DAP-K.

Kibunguchy’s wife, Josephine, said the family was yet to come to terms with the politician’s death.

“The reality that Kibunguchy had died was yet to sink. Sometimes we want to believe it is just a dream. It is like we are waking up to the reality that Daktari is no more,” she said.