The Luo Council of Elders has summoned the widow of Kibra MP Ken Okoth, Monica, for traditional burial rituals in Kabondo Homa Bay County according to Luo culture.
Part of the rituals would include ‘inheriting’ Monica as per longstanding Luo traditions which dictate that widow can be remarried by a brother of her late husband.
RITUALS
The council chairman for Kibra, John Ogeda, said the rituals must be conducted because Okoth was neither brought home nor buried in line with Luo traditions.
Ogeda also explained that when the body of the deceased is not buried in a grave, then a banana stem is usually buried in place of the body and that family members must be present.
Okoth was cremated early on Saturday morning at Nairobi’s Kariokor Crematorium in a private event attended by just a few family members and friends.
LAST WISH
The family had been torn between following the MP’s last wish of cremation or the traditional way of burying a loved one.
Before Okoth’s cremation, her mother, Angelina Ajwang, had also expressed her wish to have her son buried at her rural home in Kabondo Kasipul, but Okoth’s widow, Monica, followed the MP’s last wish.
