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10:42 AM, February 17, 2012
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to williamecpike, Catherine, Faith, wahinyabore, melawero, gitobuimanyara, primeminister, railaaodinga, wachirawaruru, wachira waheire, Release Political Prisoners and others
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Dear Mr. Pike and Ms. Gicheru:
Greetings.
I am not just a contributor to the
Star, but an avid reader of the newspaper. I make sure I purchase it EVERY DAY by 7 a.m.
As is my routine, I picked up today's edition and started perusing leisurely through the publication.
My heart skipped a beat when I came to the
Society column on page 35. What almost gave me a coronary was a story by
Grace Keronga headlined:
STL: We are not fundraising for Dad's funeral.
In the piece an individual,
Charles Mwangi, referred to as
STL's manager
is quoted as saying, "There are online reports that the family is
fundraising for the Saturday burial...but we are taking issue with the
fact that some unscrupulous people started fundraising using fliers and
even provided a phone number. We can finance the funeral without a
fundraiser."
It so happens that I,
Onyango Oloo, am a member of that funeral committee in Nairobi. Other members include
John Maina Mwangi, a first cousin to the late Jeff Mwangi;
Maina Chege, another cousin of the deceased;
Wahinya Boore, a long time friend and Kenyatta University year mate of Jeff Mwangi and
Melissa Awero, a family friend from Norway.
Jeff Mwangi, Onyango Oloo and
Wahinya Boore were among
the university students who were arrested, tortured and jailed by the
Moi-KANU regime in the aftermath of the attempted 1982 coup. We spent
many years together as political prisoners at the infamous
Kamiti Maximum Security
penitentiary on the outskirts of Nairobi and have remained steadfast
comrades ever since. This is how the latter two became members of the
Nairobi Funeral Committee following the former's devise.
Before the committee embarked on any activities,
Wahinya Boore and
John Maina Mwangi
travelled to Iregi village, Maragua, Muranga County to visit the
elderly parents of Jeff Mwangi Kwirikia. They specifically sought the
cooperation, endorsement and support of the parents to validate and
legitimize the activities of the funeral committee. Both Jeff's father
and mother did so without hesitation. It was decided that since John
Maina Mwangi was a FIRST cousin of Jeff, he should be the Treasurer of
the Nairobi Funeral Committee. An account was opened at the Harambee
Avenue branch of Equity Bank with three signatories. This was done with
full knowledge and involvement of Jeff's parents and other members of
his family. All the members of the committee were on hand at the Cargo
Centre of the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport when the body arrived
on Monday, February 13, 2012 early in the morning. In fact, John Maina
Mwangi, one of our committee members, is the one who paid for and helped
to clear the costs at the airport. Citizen TV interviewed Jeff's
father, Wahinya Boore and Onyango Oloo at the airport. This piece was
aired at the 1 pm, 4 pm and 7pm newscasts on the same day.
The committee sent out a plea regarding Jeff Mwangi Kwirikia
which was widely circulated on the internet, via email, blogs,
discussion forums and Facebook.
Melissa Awero a member of the
committee took out money from her own pocket, to pay for the first
obituary notice published in the
Daily Nation newspaper.
In the meantime the committee convened daily, PUBLIC and OPEN
meetings at the All Saints Cathedral, not only to fundraise, but to
discuss other matters relating to Jeff's burial arrangements.
At one such meeting on Tuesday, February 15th 2012
STL, the said
Charles Mwangi, STL's mother
Perpetua (
who is actually divorced from the late Jeff who was remarried to another woman, Wangeci, who is currently in Norway) attended.
At one point Charles raised some concerns regarding the involvement of certain family members in the Nairobi Funeral Committee.
At
this point, the entire Nairobi Committee offered to IMMEDIATELY step
down and hand over the Equity Bank account to STL, Charles Mwangi and
any other family members.
Instead of responding to this overture, Perpetua, STL mother WALKED
OUT of the meeting to convene an impromptu caucus outside the
kindergarten room where we were meeting. STL and Charles Mwangi excused
themselves, claiming that they had to pick up someone at the airport.
When members of the committee including this writer, protested that they
could not just utter serious allegations casting aspersions on the
integrity of individuals in the room and leave without waiting for an
amicable resolution, they simply walked out.
We did not see them at the Wednesday and Thursday meetings of the Nairobi funeral committee.
At
the Wednesday meeting, the Chair of the local (Muranga) committee
called members of our committee to provide updates and coordinate
planning on such items as the programme, the flowers and the catering.
It was resolved that members of both committees would meet face to face
to finalize these arrangements with our committee reporting on our
fundraising efforts.
At our Thurday meeting it was resolved that four members of
committee, Wahinya Boore, John Maina Mwangi, Melissa Awero and Maina
Chege would travel to Jeff's home and handover the cash collected
officially to the custody of Jeff's parents and the local funeral
committee. As this story broke, those individuals were already en route
to Muranga County.
You can imagine our shock therefore to come across this defamatory story in the middle of all these frantic preparations.
Speaking personally, I am the one who went physically to the
Office of the Prime Minister to deliver our plea. I also contacted
Gitobu Imanyara
among other public figures, civil society organizations and the wider
mainstream media. Now contemplate the phenomenon of turning to page 35
of the
Star and reading
Grace Keronga's piece while our
plea is in their inbox. If some of these people did not know us, they
would automatically conclude that we are a bunch of conmen, fraudsters
and charlatans taking advantage of Jeff's death for personal material
gain.
We are gravely disappointed that the
Star opted NOT to
contact any of us on the funeral committee to give our side of the story
and react to these putrid and sordid insinuations.
We are hereby requesting the
Star to publish this letter as part of your paper's Right of Reply tradition.
For the moment all our energies are focused on ensuring that our
late comrade, compatriot and friend Jeff Mwangi Kwirikia is accorded a
decent and dignified funeral. We will explore the legal options
available to us at a latter date. We do not wish to be drawn into the
internal family feuds pitting members of Jeff's former wife Perpetua
(STL's mother) and that of his current wife Wangeci.
Sincerely,
Onyango Oloo
(
Member of the Nairobi Funeral Committee in charge of Communications)
PS:
We
append the plea from the committee which was carried on Jukwaa, an
online discussion forum that I founded in August 2005 and still
administer. You will notice that a similar libelous story is carried on
the Capital FM website in a link posted on Jukwaa as a response to
our announcement:
http://jukwaa.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=6561
http://www.capitalfm.co.ke/lifestyle/2012/02/16/stl-slams-claims-of-funeral-fundraiser/
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