By EVELYN KWAMBOKA and NICHOLAS ANYUOR
Controversy marked the arrival of Internal Security Assistant Minister Joshua Orwa Ojode’s body in Nyanza Province minutes it was flown from Nairobi.
Wailing constituents and relatives using different modes of transport were treated to a stand-off after the late MP’s wife Mary made last minute changes to the programme.
The initial programme indicated the body was to arrive at Kabunde Airstrip in Homa-Bay but this changed to Suneka in Kisii on grounds that the local one was not safe for landing.
Immediate members of the family and constituents were forced to rush back to wait for the body but when it arrived, the hearse sped to a market one kilometre from where crowds were waiting.
Sped off
At the market, the hearse stopped for 30 minutes as residents demanded to view the body. The family declined and the driver sped off to Ojode’s Unga Village instead of proceeding to the late MPs’ father’s home in Ratang’a.
Security officers and the Provincial Administration officials were left at the market with their initial programme for Ratang’a.
Hundreds of boda boda riders carrying twigs and vehicles snaked on a rough road to Ojode’s farm as women and the youth sang dirges.
A matatu carrying APs drove past the convoy and blocked the hearse but a group of youth pushed their way through to Unga with the body.
Outside the MP’s farm, there was a stand-off as a group of relatives who had driven from Rantang’s insisted the body had to be taken to Ojode’s ancestral home for viewing before it is returned to Unga.
The late MP’s mother Hulda Ojode who was at Rantang’a had also instructed that the body should be taken to the ancestral home before it is moved to Unga, a demand rejected by the MP’s wife Mary Ojode and son Andy.
She eventually gave up and jumped out of the hearse together with her son. They then instructed the hearse driver to move the body to Rantang’a for public viewing.
In Ratang’a, the body was taken to an open field near his father’s home but the coffin was not brought out of the hearse for members of the public to see the body.
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