Today marks the 29th year after the murder of Kenyan former foreign affairs minister Robert Ouko, who was brutally murdered on February 13, 1990.
The murder which took place at Got Alila in Koru is still fresh and new in the minds of residents in Koru.
They state that they are always overcome with fear upon seeing the scene of crime and some don’t even dare visit the site.
While it is exactly 29 years since the incident, justice has not been served to the family of the deceased with many key suspects reported dead.
According to one suspect Mr Esau Omollo, residents have not forgotten the incident. He also recalled what happened before the incident.
He stated that Dr Ouko might have known of his death.
“On Sunday February 11, 1990, the minister attended a church service at AIC Koru and he asked to address the congregation,” Mr Omollo said.
“He opened the Bible and read Job 7:1-14. There was silence in the church. The minister occasionally stopped reading and wiped tears from his eyes.”
Job 7 reads: “Human life is like forced army service, like a life of hard manual labour, like a slave longing for cool shade; like a worker waiting to be paid…When I lie down to sleep, the hours drag. I toss all night and long for dawn…My body is full of worms. It is covered with scabs. Pus runs out of my sores…Remember, O God, my life is only a breath; my happiness has already ended.”
Three days after the church service, Shikuku found the minister’s body.
“There was a can, a pen, spectacles, a walking stick, a torch and a pistol next to the body. The can, we later heard, contained acid. The face was almost unidentifiable,” Mr Were said.
Mr Omollo said that the constant visit to the region by security officers brought panic to many, who to date still remember the day and cry.
However, former Kisumu Town East MP, who chaired the parliamentary team that was investigating the matter in 2013, says that the killers of Dr Ouko are known and that the previous government had been frustrating their efforts.
“Some killers have died. This information is in the Hansard. We tabled the report but was never discussed in Parliament,” Mr Sungu said.
“One of the achievements of the committee is that the evidence it presented is preserved. All the files are kept in Parliament.”
Sungu, however, insisted that the perpetrators can still be pursued and brought to book.
“There is no statute of limitations when it comes to murder. The cases can be pursued even when perpetrators die. Elderly people have been prosecuted for crimes they committed in the past. An example is Chilean former president Augusto Pinochet,” said Mr Sungu, adding that had Dr Ouko gone public with threats on his life, the killers would probably have spared him.