As judgement draws nigh for Obado Co, it seems truth stranger than fiction

Former Migori Governor Okoth Obado and his co-accused Michael Oyamo and Caspal Obiero before the Milimani Law Courts in Nairobi on September 16, 2026. [David Gichuru, Standard]

It’s been one of the most consequential criminal cases in recent memory, and its denouement this week wasn’t any less dramatic. The former Migori governor Okoth Obado sat in the dock, sipping a bottle of water and patting his pate, alongside his two aides. All three been convicted for the murder of Sharon Otieno.

Sharon, a journalism student and a mother of three, had met Obado eight years earlier, the beginning of tempestuous romance that, the court heard, yielded in an illegitimate pregnancy, blackmail and ultimately murder.

She demanded a roof over her head, a car, and a stash of cash, the stuff fit for a governor’s consort. As the court heard, Obado was unwilling to board, as they say in that side of the world to imply his reluctance to play ball. Sharon was lured to her death by Obado’s aides, abducted, raped and ultimately murdered. Her unborn baby, which was sired by Obado, was killed, too.

In court, Sharon’s mother, Melida Auma with hands raised in supplication, begged the court not to “crucify” the former governor, saying a death sentence would be akin to suffering a second tragedy.

That’s very strange language, for crucifixion has righteous connotations only reserved for Jesus Christ, who was put to death for humanity’s collective sins. None of that happened to Obado. The court concluded that Obado’s two co-accused, working at his behest and facilitation, conspired to suppress Sharon’s illegitimate pregnancy. Getting rid of the pregnancy, the court ruled, was one of the motivations for Sharon’s murder.

This week, Mama Auma made a different plea: She wants Obado spared not just the noose, but a custodial sentence so that he can help her raise the three children that survived Sharon. In fact, she pressed on, Obado had been willing to do “one-two-three,” but was constrained by the court’s imposition to keep distance.

Well, if a man orchestrates the murder of his own unborn tot to avoid responsibility, but is compelled to raise other men’s children to assuage his guilt, that’d be what they call poetic justice.

Only that poets don’t make such rulings, else so much would be lost in translation, as was the case when Sharon’s father, Douglas Zacharia Otieno, took the witness stand to defend Obado, but not his two co-accused.

When he said he’d speak in his mother tongue, Dholuo, there was a gaggle of protest from the courtroom. Otieno’s words were getting lost in translation. So the man switched and spoke pretty good Rusungu: If he were a dog, he stuttered, he would tear up the two co-accused and lick their blood. The act of switching from Dholuo to Rusungu had turned him into a rabid hound that had smelt blood.

Then Otieno turned, yet again, when he was asked what he had to say about Obado. With the meekness of a lamb, he said he’d want the former governor set free because he had expressed remorse and reached out to him for reconciliation.

The inference here is that those who have the wherewithal can commit crimes and compensate their victims, or their survivors, because they have the means to.

That might not apply for Obado, though. His fortunes have turned, for worse, following separate charges of corruption by the anti-graft agency. He has since forfeited a good chunk of his property, including houses that were deduced to be proceeds of crime, so I don’t think he has that much left to give away.

In any case, I don’t know what it would mean for Sharon’s offspring to be supported by a man who murdered their mother. That’s not how the world works anyway.

Still, Mama Auma spoke forcefully, raising her left hand; if Obado was sentenced to hang, that’d be akin to a second death in her family. I thought she meant to say Obado’s march to freedom would be like having Sharon murdered for the second time, but something had been lost in translation. Indeed, truth is stranger than fiction.