Three years on, wife still waits for ex-KDF soldier

BOMET: Had Nancy Mutai of Mariango village, Goitab Silibwet location, Bomet County known that her husband John Kipsiele Mutai was going to call her on that Sunday October 14, 2012 she would have ensured her phone was charged.

But as fate would have it, her phone ran out of charge when her husband made that call in the afternoon when she had gone to visit a relative.

"After failing to reach me on my phone, my husband called a neighbour telling him that he wanted to talk with one of our sons who was due to undergo circumcision.

I tried calling him back when I got home but he did not pick up. I kept on trying till the phone went dead at around 8pm," she says.

Nancy has not been able to reach her husband since then.

"I keep asking myself where he went to and what really happened because not a single day would go by without us talking," she says of her husband, who at one time was driver to former Chief of the Armed Forces General Mahmoud Mohamed.

After a week of trying to contact him, she decided to go to the home of her husband's friend in Nairobi and inquire after his whereabouts.

"His friend only told me that my husband had said he was to travel to Mombasa.

When we inquired from his boss, he expressed surprise saying he thought John had come home," Nancy says, adding that they immediately reported the matter to police.

"I remember the day he came home and happily told me and the children that he was part of the peace-keeping team that had been selected to go to Bosnia. That was 1994.

They returned in 1995 but he temporarily left the service in 2001 after developing asthma. Later that year, he went back and formally applied for retirement in 2005," she said.

Nancy recounts how life became unbearable after John retired and was forced to work as a driver.

"He worked for different people including former Local Government Permanent Secretary Sammy Kirui before he was eventually employed by General Mohammed as his driver," she said.

Nancy remembers that after Mohammed retired from the force her husband became the driver of General Aden Abdulliah.

Although distraught, Nancy finds it ironic that a man who kept a record of daily happenings in his pocket diary would just disappear.

"I have never allowed my mind to imagine that he could have joined Al Shaabab because he was a moderate man who loved his family. He always inquired about our neighbours and never held a grudge against anyone," she says.

"When he left our first born was in Form Two. Two younger ones were forced to repeat their classes in primary hoping that I would find help so that they can proceed to secondary school," she says. She asks the Government to release his retirement benefits so that she can use it to educate her four children.