The murder of Foreign Affairs Minister Robert Ouko on February 13, 1990 is still fresh in many people’s minds. And the subsequent events following the killing that have seen key witnesses die mysteriously, adding to the villagers’ fears. Few are willing to discuss the topic freely.
The zombies who claim that Caroline Mwatha died as a result of a “botched abortion” are the same mummified Egyptians who believed that Dr. Robert Ouko whom Moi and Biwott had murdered had committed suicide and that JM Kariuki had “fled to Zambia” in 1975 when Jomo had killed him.
— Dr. Miguna Miguna (@MigunaMiguna) February 12, 2019
Mr Omollo says Dr Ouko might have known he was going to die. “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.”
Mr Were says villagers have not forgotten the death. “A lot of water has passed under the bridge but we leave it all to God,” he says. 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 says security teams would visit Koru day and night sending many in panic. Former Kisumu Town East MP Gor Sungu, who in 2013 chaired a parliamentary team that investigated the death, told the Nation on Monday that Dr Ouko’s killers are known. He was, however, guarded with information. “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.”
“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.