Migori Senator succumbs to cancer at city hospital
Migori Senator Ben Oluoch Okello has died in Nairobi.
Mr Okello, a former Ramogi and KBC radio presenter, passed on at a Nairobi hospital after long battle with cancer.
“He passed on at MP Shah Hospital shortly past midnight after battle with throat cancer,” his nephew and family spokesman Mark Okundi told the Nation on Tuesday.
The Migori Senate Office also confirmed Mr Okello’s death.
“We are very sad to inform the public that Senator Ben Oluoch Okello is no more,” Mr Oguda Walter, the communications director, said.
PRAYING FOR FAMILY
“Join us in praying for his family during this most trying moment. Other updates will follow after consultative meetings.”
Mr Okello, popularly known as BOO among his radio fans back then, has been in and out of hospital.
He was recently treated and discharged from an Indian hospital.
“He had been in India for two months and was treated. He went back for review and his doctors discovered a tumour that had not healed,” the late senator’s brother Dennis Ojwang’ said.
“He was treated again and brought back to the country. He has been recuperating at MP Shah hospital. Unfortunately we lost him at 12.30 this morning.”
The lawmaker’s body has since been moved to Lee Funeral Home in Nairobi.
Mr Okello was elected Migori senator on an Orange Democratic Movement ticket in the August 8, 2017 elections.
He replaced Dr Wilfred Machage, who decided not to defend his seat and instead chose to vie for the Kuria West parliamentary on Democratic Party ticket.
Mr Oluoch was among the many journalists who joined elective politics last year.
He was working at the Royal Media’s Ramogi FM before resigning to plunge into the murky waters of politics.
He clinched the ODM ticket before flooring his opponents at the General Election.
SPECULATION
But before his death, social media had been awash with speculation on his illness.
At one point, Mr Okello threatened to take legal action against people who were speculating his death.
Mr Oluoch trained at the South-B-based Kenya Institute of Mass Communication (KIMC), worked as a presenter at the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation’s (Luo service) before joining the Royal Media Services.
In the run-up to the ODM primaries, the journalist floored former Migori County Assembly Speaker Gordon Ogolla, former Knut deputy secretary-general Charles Katege, businesmen Eddy Oketch and Mr Solomon Hodo.
Additional report by Elisha Otieno.