Picking up the pieces after long stint in prison

Jacob Shikuku tilling family sugarcane farm, he is usually busy in the farm after release from prison to make ends meet.

Before June 1, 2014 Jacob Shikuku was just like any other inmate going through the motions of prison life, looking forward to nothing. Then a miracle happened; after 21 years of uncertainty about getting freedom or justice, Shikuku, 54, was declared a free citizen. He had been pardoned by the President.

Dazed but grateful, he retraced his steps to the place he had called home two decades ago. As he approached, he was engulfed by fear; would his family accept him? What about the villagers and society in general? But he had nowhere else to go, so home he headed.
We met him outside his brother Morris Sifuna’s house in Shikulu Village in Malava, Kakamega County. He was sporting a grey shirt and matching trousers with blue sandals.
He ushered us into the house with a warm grin that lit up his dark complexion and just before we took our seats, we noticed that Sifuna and Shikuku were standing up. We also stood.
“Okay, let’s pray,” Sifuna said  and proceeded to say a lengthy prayer thanking God for uniting the family with their ‘lost’ brother.
Shikuku was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1993 for what he terms a framed case against him by a girlfriend in a Bungoma court.