Former Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Nkaisserry suffered a heart attack that claimed his life suddenly in 2017, a new book reveals.
In her memoirs, Nkaisserry’s wife Helen, rubbishes claims of foul play in her husband’s death saying the postmortem examination clearly revealed what caused the minister’s death.
“The explanations made sense to me. I am a scientist. I could see there was method, there was logic, there was evidence, and there was consistency,” she explains of the postmortem report.
Helen, who says she fondly referred to her husband as ‘General’ explains that the family did whatever that was humanly possible to establish the cause of Nkaisserry’s death.
Helen, uses her memoirs to reveal that Nkaisserry was unwell months to his death, saying he “could sleep so poorly, he had persistent indigestion.”
“I believe the results that all the tests and investigation showed not least because I had seen, throughout 2017, that my husband was not well,” she reveals.
“Those who try to guilt-trip me, to make me feel that I did not do enough for my husband are unkind. They do not care for the peace of mind that my children and I need to go on without General.”
She recounts that there were those moments that “ I know of, when he clearly experienced very sharp chest pain”.
‘He was struggling with something, medically, even though,stubbornly, he refused to have it checked by a doctor. General died of heart attack,” she concludes after years of speculations.
After Nkaissery’s sudden death on July 1, 2017, his wife says the family made three critical steps in ensuring that the investigation to Nkaisserry’s death was above board.
Firstly, they hired a private pathologist, Dr. Bessie Byyakika, to work with the government pathologists, Dr. Johnssen Oduor and Dr. Wang’ombe as the first stable to establishing the cause of death.
Secondly, the family then engaged two private doctors, Dr Richard Barasa and Dr. Charles Kariuki, to be present at the postmortem and when the analysis was communicated to them.
Thirdly, in addition to the samples that were taken to the government chemist for analysis, body samples were collected and sent to the Germany for investigations.
“Keen to thwart anything untoward en route, Dr. Byakika travelled to Germany with the samples. The government met the costs of the trip,” Helen writes in her memoirs, The General and I.
Helen says when the family got the probe report into Nkaisserry’s death, there was nothing “toxic, foreign, or unusual” that was found in his body.
“There were clear signs of a ‘sudden onset fatal heart attack’, caused by severely compromised blood vessel that could not carry sufficient blood to one part of general’s heart,” she writes.
Helen reveals that she would later come to learn that the kind of heart attack her husband suffered is called a hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
“Dr. Mogere explained to me later that it this condition, ‘the heart muscle is so big that the electricals fail’. It is most common among athletes, people with a high fitness level,” she says.
In this condition, the heart muscle comes abnormally thick making it difficult for the heart to pump sufficient blood to the rest of the body.
“The pathologists explained that there is no pain associated with this kind of sudden cardiac death,” Nkaisserry’s wife writes in her book.
According to Helen, the pathologists explained to her that her husband had ‘a very enlarged heart’ of 500 grams while the normal average is between 300-350 grams.
“I didn’t wait for a scientific explanation for this, the metaphor of it made the most sense to me for I had always known my husband to be a big-hearted man, generous to a vault,” she says.
The late genera’s wife, admits that despite the findings on Nkaisserry’s death, fears of foul play have persisted long after the pathologists made their report.
‘They pain me, these rumours,” Helen writes wondering why would anyone want to push her in the direction of suspicion.
“Those who do so, what evidence do they have? What do they want me to use to pursue this, what strategy, what mechanism? Where do they want me to go to prove their version of truth? Who am I fighting?” she poses.
Helen says she does not want to launch what she describes as ‘war in his name ‘and soil his work of mediation and cohesion building that he undertook with so much passion, all his life.
“No one has ever come out to tell my children and I where to find concrete evidence to support alternative arguments about what killed general. No one has offered us solutions. We did what we were able to do and it was quite substantial, ” Helen writes.
Very encouraging Helen. Africans are like that; No one dies naturally – there was foul play. Thank you for detailed info. Best regards.