Jane Atieno says she fears the August 2022 general elections as it stokes memories of grief.
Atieno’s husband was shot dead in post-election violence in 2008 and since then she has been struggling to raise her three children after her soulmate Ochieng Okumu was killed.
She sells fried fish during evening hours at an open-air market outside Muhindi Mweusi supermarket in Nairobi’s Imara Daima and hunts for odd jobs during the daytime to supplement her earnings.
Atieno was also among thousands of slum dwellers who were evicted from Mukuru slums last month.
However, she was given accommodation at Legio Maria church in the area where she has been an ardent worshiper.
“We had just lived together for slightly over seven years. Our first born was about six years and the other two were very young,” she narrated
“That day he woke up as usual and left home telling me he was heading to town through Jogoo Road. I asked him if it was safe but he responded that he will not take long,” she said.
“By 2pm, I tried calling him but he was offline. But before that, a friend had called to inform me that my husband was caught up in demonstrations and shot by police along Jogoo Road,” she narrated.
Atieno said the husband’s friend informed her that Ochieng was in critical condition when emergency doctors picked him.
“The following day, we proceeded to Kenyatta National Hospital where we were told all the men who were brought in did not survive, including my husband. It was a painful experience for me as we started burial arraignments,” she said.
That year, she says, her husband was running a small business and at the same time taught at the Legio Maria Church.
Fourteen years on, Achieng says whenever anything related to elections is mentioned, it reawakens the dark memories that she went through.
“I fear the political season because it robbed me of my husband and I have had to live with the consequences of the season,” she said.
Her description comes months into the August 9 General Election.
“I have never voted in my life and I will never do it because that is what robbed me my husband and no one offered any helping hand afterwards,” she said
