Widow of former Foreign Affairs Minister Robert Ouko is dead

Police said Mrs Christabel Ouko died at Shiloam Hospital in Kericho, where she was rushed after a road accident at the Kisumu-Muhoroni junction Monday evening.

Details of the accident were not forthcoming but it was after attending the swearing-in ceremony of Kisumu Governor Peter Anyang' Nyong'o. She was 76.

Kisumu County Police Commander Titus Yoma and his Kericho counterpart, James Mwongera, said the accident happened on the Kericho-Kisumu border.

"We rushed to the scene but found she had been taken to the hospital. Her car was a wreck, “said Mr James Okaka.

Mrs Ouko, a mother of seven, had for many years since her husband's murder kept out of the limelight. However, she recently told journalists that she still yearned to know who killed her husband and why.

In an interview with this writer in 2007, Mrs Ouko spoke of the pain of losing her husband, who was killed on February 12, 1990.

"I just don't know why they killed Bob in such a brutal manner," she told The Standard then.

Dr Ouko's charred body was found under a guava tree at the foot of Got Alila, some 2.8km from his Koru home two days after he was reported missing.

Mrs Ouko was a key witness during the investigations and commissions of inquiry formed by the government to try to identify the killers of her husband.

In 1990, she testified to the commission appointed by then President Daniel arap Moi and chaired by then Chief Justice Evan Gicheru and again in 2003 during a parliamentary committee chaired by former Kisumu Town East MP Eric Gor Sungu.

Parliamentary committee

She went to Chianda Primary in Siaya County, Ng'iya Girls High School, and Butere Girls High School.

She later went to Alliance Girls' High School and the University of Nairobi.

She served as a civil servant until her retirement soon after her husband's death.

Muhoroni MP-elect James Onyango K'Oyoo sent condolences to the family. [John Oywa]