•Akinyi says she wants to set the record straight.
The application was made last Friday, days after the court-ordered DNA on her DNA on the twins.
Phoebe Akinyi Gweno, who is said to have delivered Fidel Odinga's twins, has emerged and disowned a suit filed by Ida Odinga.
Akinyi has termed the court battle started by Ida as malicious, raising interest about what she tells the court.
“The petition is marred with ill will and malicious motives, creating a tussle with the deceased's widow on one side and the deceased's mother and siblings on the other, her lawyer John Swaka said.
"The interested party and her children have been left in between owing to her seeking to be enjoined as an interested party to clear the air and give her position on the same,” he said.
In court documents obtained by the Star, Akinyi says she wants to be a party to the case in the interests of her children and to “clear the air.”
Akinyi filed the affidavit on Friday, just four days after the High Court ordered a DNA test on the twins to determine if they are indeed the late Fidel’s children. If not, they present the Odinga’s with tough options.
In the case, Opposition chief Raila Odinga’s wife Ida and her daughter Winnie are seeking to block Fidel’s widow Lwam Bekele from solely administering her late husband’s estate.
“The widow to the deceased [Lwam] petitioned the court for letters of administration for her late husband’s estate. The said petition was objected to by the deceased's mother [Ida] and sister [Winnie], respectively. The objectors mentioned my children and I in the matter,” Akinyi stated in her affidavit.
“I intend to be enjoined as an interested party for the interests of my children and to also clear the air and give my voice on the same," she stated.
Akinyi has been managing a forex Bureau at Adams Arcade and sometimes at Warwick Centre in Gigiri.
It is not clear whether she had an intimate relationship with Fidel but Odinga's son used to change his money there and conduct his M-Pesa transactions at the same bureau.
"We do not know if Fidel actually had a relationship with Akinyi and whether the twins are actually Fidel's," Akinyi's colleague at the Forex Bureau said.
In the request filed in the High Court under a certificate of urgency, Akinyi asserts that she is the biological mother of the twins – a girl and a boy — but the birth certificates do not identify the father.
She explains that she intends to be a party to the case to protect the interests of the minors who together with herself stand to suffer "irreparably" if the court denies her the opportunity.
Ida and Winnie are accusing Lwam of colluding with her family members to petition the court to grant her letters of administration of the estate without their knowledge.
In the court papers, Ida and Winnie give several reasons the widow should not be allowed to be the administrator of Fidel’s estate.
“The petitioner has deliberately failed to include and provide or otherwise show the intention of providing for the said minors, hence, a red flag on her intentions,” Ida said.
However, Bekelle through her lawyers termed her mother-in-law's assertions as a concoction of facts given that the twins were born six months after Fidel's death.
“In the birth certificates attached to the affidavit in support of the cross-petition, there is no indication of the father of the said minors. The said birth certificates do not thus prove paternity of the minors,” Bekelle said.
She says, however, that should it be proved that the twins were Fidel’s biological children, she would include them in the list of beneficiaries.
On Monday, Justice Aggrey Muchelule asked for a DNA test on the twins to sort out the paternity dispute.
It’s not clear whether Raila or Ida would give their samples for the DNA testing.
It has emerged that Lwam's lawyer Roger Sagana made several efforts to try and resolve that matter quietly, but Ida decided to go ahead with the court case.
"Sagana tried to speak to the Odingas on why court action was not the right way to resolve a family matter. Initially, Ida agreed with the lawyer and promised to follow up the matter only for her lawyer to serve Sagana with court papers," an MP familiar with the goings-on told the Star.
ends