Micheal Mugwang'a and Ouma Wanzala
2 October 2008
Nairobi — It's been 20 months behind bars for four men who believe they were victims of politics of the day. Still, one went ahead to become a councillor, and was sworn in while in custody.
The men were arrested in February last year, over a crime they allegedly committed two years earlier.
They were Mr Ojiambo Orida Obada, Mr Patrick Ouma Wafula, Mr Dennis Mugwang'a and Mr Kennedy Mukuli Magio, an assistant chief for Bujwang'a Sub-Location
In the first case, some men had been arrested and accused of murdering a woman and her farmhand in Bunandi Village in Samia in 1997.
The woman was the wife of Mr Tom Ojasi Otwoma, an uncle of Fisheries minister Paul Nyongesa Otwoma.
Mr Ojasi was under his bed when his wife and worker were executed, and swears he saw the attackers who had ostensibly came for him. He knew the members of the gang and remembers every detail.
Some of the suspects were arrested and as their case was dragging on, former Vice-President Moody Awori is said to have begun exerting pressure on the judicial officers to expedite it.
One of the suspects was a supporter of the VP. The case was in fact expedited, and some of the suspects released in 2002.
Indeed, at one point, MPs asked Mr Awori to resign following claims that he sought the release of three murder suspects.
Gem MP Jakoyo Midiwo produced in Parliament, a letter he said was written by Mr Awori to then Busia principal resident magistrate Walter Nyarima, seeking to know the status of the case.
Come August 2005, a few hours into the night and a high school teacher, his businesswoman wife and her sister have just finished dinner in their house within the compound of Sio Port Police Station.
Gangsters walk into the house, rape the two women as the husband watches, and at gun point, orders them to walk out of the house, out of the police station, and to a dark spot, 500 metres away.
The women are shot at point blank range and killed. The teacher is made to watch the women die. The women, Ms Veronica Achieng' and Ms Jacklyne Ajiambo are Dr Otwoma's aunts.
When investigations were done, it emerged that some of the suspects behind the rape and murder were the same ones implicated in the earlier murders.
After some arrests some suspects were freed under unclear circumstances. The residents of Samia South became furious.
The family even dumped the bodies of their loved ones at the Busia district commissioner's offices. Residents said they knew the criminals among them, and if the police could not take them out, they (residents) would.
They begun their own policing. And when they were through, a few suspects were dead and a few houses razed down. That was in 2005.
Two years later, in 2007, a councillor, an assistant chief and two aides of a parliamentary aspirant are arrested for the murder of one of the victims of the mob. The aspirant was notified that police wanted him.
Those arrested were Mr Camulus Obada, Mr Kennedy Magio, Mr Patrick Wafula and Mr Dennis Nyegegenye Mugwang'a.
The parliamentary aspirant was Dr Otwoma, now Fisheries minister and MP for Funyula, who last year conducted his campaigns by ducking the police, who were constantly pursuing.
He later moved to the Constitutional Court and was allowed to campaign for three months. On Thursday, as the court in Busia freed the four, Mr Obada walked out a councillor.
High court judge Mbogholi Msagha ruled: "I'm unable to attribute the killing to any of the four accused persons.
As no case has been made against any of the four persons, I hereby find that they have no case to answer. They are all acquitted."
Relatives and friends burst into song and dance in praise of their councillor. They later drove him along the streets.
"We knew the arrests were political. Today we thank God for hearing our humble prayers," a jovial Obada told a cheering crowd.
Earlier, the prime suspect in the killing of the Otwoma sisters caused a stir in court when he heard that the four had been freed. He roughed up a police officer who was guarding him in the cells.
Mr Patrick Lumumba is charged with killing Ms Achieng and Ms Ajiambo. The women had close links with the freed councillor.
His co-accused are Mr Denis Wandera and Mr Vincent Okumu. They will have to await their day in court, but meanwhile, Samia South residents are happy that justice has finally been done.
Additional reporting by Michael Oongo
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