By HONESTY OIMBO

A 25-year-old man at Siamani location in Nyamira County who sold his land for a million shillings is now homeless after his wife, a former prostitute, vanished with the cash.

Ongere, whose father died five years ago, had been trying to sell his land for close to three years, but his mother always barred him.

Unfortunately, one month ago, Ongere’s mother died after a short llness. In less than two weeks, Ongere, the only son whose three sisters are married, sold the piece of land to a Nyamira tycoon.

Relatives tried to reason with him to no avail. His uncle, Mose, even beseeched the clan elder to try and stop Ongere from selling the land on which his forefathers are buried.

“I tried to convince him that ancestral land is never sold, but he ignored me like so many other young men here with no brains,” Mose laments.

His pockets now awash with money, Ongere went to a drinking den in Nyamira town where he had been working as a waiter and quickly married a woman he had been chasing for months.

Sources close to the land seller revealed to Crazy Monday that for three months, Ongere had been trying to seduce Caro, a prostitute, but she had flatly told him there was no way she could stay in the bush. It appears luring her into marriage was the compelling reason why he hurriedly sold his land. Four days after selling the land, Ongere who is now cooling his heels in his uncle’s house, says Caro approached him when he was heavily drank in the morning and drew up a plan that pleased him immensely.

“She told me that Nyamira was too small a town for business and that Nairobi would be best. So she said we should withdraw the money and set up a boutique and salon in Nairobi,” Ongere recounts, now in obvious depression.
Since it was early in the morning, Caro insisted that they leave for Nairobi the same day with the cash so they could start business the next day. In no time, they were in a banking hall where he withdrew Sh950,000. They boarded a Nairobi bound bus minutes later.

But shortly before the bus was meant to depart, Caro, who was carrying the money, got out to go for a short call. Ongere waited for her till his patience ran out.

“I got out of the bus but she was nowhere in sight. I waited for two hours. Though I was drunk, I knew in my heart that I had been conned by the woman I loved so much. Caro betrayed me. She never came back and I don’t even know her second name or where she comes from,” Ongere laments, his eyes brimming with tears.

Penniless and jobless, Ongere had little option but to go back to the village and beg his uncle to house him for awhile.
“I walked to the slaughterhouse like a sheep because I loved that woman, but I know I will rise again. God is on my side,” he says, wiping tears from his eyes.