Omar Lali, the former boyfriend of the late Tecra Muigai, has opened up on little known details about his love affair with the Keroche Breweries heiress.
The 51-year-old Lamu-based native said she met Tecra at a restaurant in Lamu while having dinner with his daughter.
“I had gone to dinner with my daughter who had not been to Kenya in many years. Tecra was at the restaurant with a friend who I happened to know. I said hello to my friend but when I got home my friend called me saying Tecra was asking around for the guy with the grey beard,” he recalled.
Lali said his torrid love affair with the Keroche Breweries director started that night.
“That night we stayed late as we talked about life. I took her to her room at around 2am and she told me not to leave because she felt at peace being with me. We spent the night together and that is how our love started.”
Omar said their relationship was strongly opposed by Tecra’s billionaire family, more so by Tecra’s mother, Tabitha Karanja. He said the businesswoman likened him to an Alshabaab terrorist.
“When Tecra took me to her family, they didn’t want to hear anything about me. Her mother told me there is no way her daughter was going to live with an Alshabab terrorist. But I have since forgiven her since she is old school she probably didn’t mean it. At one point she came home with a convoy of six cars and I decided to escape because I was afraid of the people she was bringing,” narrated Omar Lali.
He said Tecra’s brother, James Muigai, helped resolve the feud with the Keroche family; Muigai convinced their father, Joseph Karanja, to bless the union.
“Mzee blessed us and the feud stopped. We toured the world and I was able to teach her to overcome her fears,” he said.
Omar, however, regrets not being able to convince Tecra to reduce her alcohol consumption.
“The only thing, regrettably, that I failed to teach her was regulation of alcohol intake. She used to drink a lot and I pleaded with her to only drink after sunset but she would respond by telling that her family was in the alcohol business and drinking was their tradition which I must respect as she respected mine,” he said.
Recounting the fateful day Tecra fell down a staircase on April 27, Omar said he had blacked out.
“That day I had taken some antibiotics for my tooth which had an infection. She pressured me to drink but I only took a few drinks and blacked out. I was awoken by the sound of a thud and when I work up, I realized she had fallen down the sharp staircase on her way to the washroom,” he said.
