Description

On December 20, 1986, the distinguished Kenya Lawyer Silvanus Melea Otieno fell sick at his farm in the suburb of Nairobi. He was rushed to the hospital where he was pronounced dead at 6:00 pm. For the next six months, the struggle over who would control the remains – his widow Virginia Wambui Waiyaki Otieno or the Umira Kager clan and its representatives- and where his body would be buries-at the couple’s residence at Ngong near Nairobi or at SM’s place of birth at Nyalgunga, Nyamira village, Siaya in Western Kenya- became matters of national and international attention. Debates surged through the streets of Nairobi and along the pathways of the Kenya countryside over what legal, cultural, social and historical grounds should govern the disposition of the remains lying embalmed in the Kenyan mortuary, over what rights should be enjoyed by women before the law of the republic, and over the public and hidden interest of the state in the Otieno’s case