Dickens Wasonga @PeopleDailyKe
For a 95-year-old Truphena Akoth Otako, the age of miracles is not over.Just two weeks ago, sadness and despair were written all over her face as her family stared at eviction from land they have occupied for more than 48 years.
Fate appeared to have conspired with her late husband’s kin to render her homeless at her sunset years.
But when People Daily paid her a visit last Saturday, the sadness on her face had been replaced with hopeful smile.
A dramatic change in fortunes began with a phone call from President Uhuru Kenyatta, to whom she had appealed for intervention in article published in this newspaper on July 9.
The Head of State’s quick response was a pleasant surprise to her and her bisieged family.
Touched by the moving story, State House had called National government officials in Siaya the same day the story was published.
Eviction order
“The President needed a clear history of the land and a report filed,” said Ugenya sub-county commissioner Pamela Atieno.
Atieno was dispatched to visit the family in Jera Village by Nyanza Regional Commissioner James Kianga. She was accompanied by Assistant County Commissioner, the local chief and his assistant.
When the guests arrived at the village, rumours quickly spread that they had come to effect the court’s eviction order which had been issued after her husband’s relative won the land dispute case.
“We believed we had lost the battle and our hope of ever occupying this land was completely shattered. But we were wrong. The President had sent a team to rescue us,” Truphena told People Daily in an interview on Saturday.
The sub-county commissioner revealed that the government was in the process of hiring a lawyer to file an appeal against the High Court verdict that directed that the old woman, her son and grandchildren be evicted. The cost of the suit will be met by the State.
“Once the appeal is filed, nobody will interfere with the widow and her family. We have assured them as much. The President is keen to see the family gets justice,” she added.
Uhuru is not the only one who was touched by the story of Truphena’s plight. After reading the story, several people volunteered to help foot the cost of filing an appeal.
48 years
Among them was Prof Stephen Okelo of the University of Nairobi.“It is cruel to throw out the family from the land it has occupied all these years,” said Okelo.
The widow sought Uhuru’s help to recover land she has occupied for 48 years but lost recently through a court ruling that ordered her family’s eviction.
Speaking to People Daily at her home two days after the court’s decision, she had appealed to the President to rescue her from being disinherited by the son of her brother-in-law from the land she says was once owned by her late husband.
“I have no money to appeal against the court’s decision that gave the son to my late husband’s brother the orders to evict me together with my son and his children from the ancestral land that we have occupied in peace over the years,” she said.
