The late Kibra MP Ken Okoth’s mother, Angeline Ajwang, on Tuesday, talked down Luo elders after she was seemingly fed up with their insistence of traditional burial of her son.
Okoth was cremated on Saturday in Nairobi but elders frowned upon the move arguing that it was un-African.
The grieving woman demanded that the elders’ tone down their demands to allow her to mourn her son in peace.
She further blasted them of running to the media to air their dissatisfaction instead of talking to her first.
“The best thing they could have done is to come and sit down with me as the mother instead of going to the media. They should let my son rest in peace.
“They saw what happened, did you even see one of them coming to me to give advice on what should happen? They now say I was part of the cremation idea, did they see me attend the ceremony?” she posed.
Ajwang was responding to calls by the elders who insisted on performing a traditional burial of the late lawmaker in which they would bury a banana stem.
“In our community, we do not cremate and what happened is against our culture and it must be condemned,” the elders demanded.
So serious was the situation that politicians joined the debate calling for an end to the debate.
“The elders should let the family be instead of going to the media and embarrassing the entire community over traditions,” argued Kasipul Kabondo MP Eve Obara.
“The elders should find a proper and amicable way of tackling such issues and also respect the decisions of the family,” stated ODM chairman John Mbadi.
