Finally, the Umira Kager clan bites the dust

Wambui Otieno-Mbugua must be rolling all over the ground in laughter. When her husband, SM Otieno, died over two decades ago, the Umira Kager clan hired a hot-shot lawyer and fought to the Court of Appeal to prevent her from interring his remains at their Upper Matasia home.

The clansmen swore that a major curse would befall them if the top criminal lawyer was buried in an urban plot and not the land of his ancestors. They won the battle and averted what would easily have been the mother of all curses.

In fact, they have gone so far as to suggest that when Wambui, God forbid, passes on, it’s to Nyalgunga and beside SM Otieno that she will rest. Mbugua is not in the picture. He just happened to pull tero on Wambui, a critical wife inheritance ritual that they had no hope whatsoever of administering on the fiery Mau Mau fighter.

But now, another leading son of theirs, one Joshua Okuthe, has departed. Just when they were gathering their monkey skins and walking sticks to travel to his Lavington home, when clansmen were congregating in his rural home and lining up cattle for slaughter, just when they had began to sniff home made brew and the aroma of beef stew, his widow did the unthinkable. She went ahead and cremated his remains.

Would you believe the cheek? That the sneaky lady had the audacity to cremate a senior member of the Umira Kager clan — just in the nick of time, thereby smartly averting what would certainly have been a mouth-watering legal battle?

Now thanks to her recklessness, the Umira Kager is cursed — finished. Evil spirits called nyawawa will be prowling the landscape, howling in the darkness, baying for vengeance. Male seed will be rendered blank, female wombs obsolete, the soils barren. Ker Ogalo, the Luo spiritual leader, has now decreed that the family must be cleansed.

But hold your horses. Not too long ago, the wife of Peter Okondo pulled a fast one on her husband’s community and cremated the former cabinet minister. It was whispered that a major curse was in the offing. That curse has taken one hell of a long time getting here.