Kahawa Wendani MCA Cyrus Omondi. /COURTESY.
NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb 18- In the list of their endless questions, one thing is not disputable. They want to know what led to the death of Cyrus Omondi, the Kahawa Wendani Ward representative who died in India while on an official trip.
The father of three is said to have been in high spirits when he left the country for the trip, but three days after, on February 12, some 18 hours after he walked into his hotel room in Mumbai, he was found dead.
A video of his body captured by the Indian authorities and seen by Capital News shows Omondi’s body facing down on the left side of the bed. He had vomited.
Though Kiambu County leadership has called for time to allow authorities piece information together and establish what killed him, his family has made it clear that they suspect foul play.
From how the news broke to the initial planning of the India trip, the family says there is a lot of “glaring gaps.”
His mother Millicent Achieng was the last to receive the news of his second-born son’s death.
Achieng, like any other day, was selling fish near Kahawa Wendani bus terminus- when she received reports that her son could be dead.
“A friend called me and said pole (sorry),” she said of the call that was dropped when she started enquiring why her friend was being sympathetic with her.
Then came a customer, who uttered the same words.
“I asked him, is my son dead?” she posed, and the customer casually replied, “something like that.”
It was until 6.30 am the following day when the family got an official confirmation with a visit by Kiambu Governor Dr. James Nyoro and Speaker Stephen Ndichu.
On Sunday night, Omondi’s body was flown back to the country ahead of an autopsy to establish the cause of his death.
But this will be a second autopsy since the first one was conducted by authorities in India, but where is the report?
The family on Monday said they were not notified when the autopsy was done.
“Our pathologist did not even access the body,” the late MCA’s brother, Stephen Omondi told Capital News.
The family now wants the Kiambu County Government to provide them with an itinerary of their late son while in India and details of the meetings he attended.
“How can someone go missing for 18 hours without his colleagues raising an alarm?” Omondi wondered.
It is a question that remains unanswered and posed by friends and relatives in equal measure.
But then there are reports that Omondi was also attending an international tournament on invitation by organizers and that he joined members of the education committee, which he was the chairperson, on a later date.
The Kiambu County Assembly was set to clear the air on Sunday evening but pushed it further for a future date.
“We just want an explanation,” Achieng said.
Omondi came to the limelight after he clinched a Jubilee ticket in 2017, breaking the tradition of the area electing leaders hailing from the dominant Kikuyu community in Kiambu County.
A second autopsy was scheduled to conducted on Omondi’s body later this week.
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