Former Laikipia North MP Mathew Lempurkel has died, a week after sustaining critical injuries in a road accident. His family confirmed the news on Sunday.
Lempurkel had been admitted to the intensive care unit of a Nairobi hospital following the crash in Ongata Rongai, Kajiado County.
Rigathi Gachagua, former deputy president and leader of the Democracy for the Citizens Party, mourned him as a loyal ally and servant of the people.
“He has departed, but his legacy will live on in our hearts,” Mr Gachagua wrote on X.
Lempurkel, 46, represented Laikipia North in Parliament from 2013 to 2017 under the ODM ticket. A passionate advocate for the Maa community, he often spoke out on land rights and community representation.
But his political career was also marked by turbulence. In 2021, he was sentenced to a year in prison for assaulting his successor, Sarah Korere, in the office of the late Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Nkaissery. The two had long-standing political differences.
He also faced charges in 2022 over remarks made on national television, which prosecutors said amounted to incitement and fuelled ethnic tension in Laikipia.
In November 2023, Lempurkel left ODM for President William Ruto’s UDA before later shifting to Mr Gachagua’s DCP. His final years in politics reflected the shifting alliances that have defined Kenya’s recent political landscape.
For many in Laikipia North, however, he will be remembered as a fiery voice for his community, even as controversy followed him.
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