Reports by Leo Odera Omolo
The resident of Rusinga Island were on Sunday afternoons thrown into a mourning mood following the sudden death a prominent educationist and a farmer Mr Apollo Okeyo Omuga who died of what the family suspected to be related cardiac arrest.
Doubling as the chairman of the Sub Council of Elders, Mr Okeyo Omuga was a retired school teachers who rose through ladder and ranks and became the Provincial Adult Education Officer before his retirement bout eight years. After his retirement from active service he then embarked into rehabilitation and reforestation program through an NGO, which saw millions seedling of tree planed on various hills within the Island which had been depleted of natural tree, particularly around Ligongo Hill.
Family sources says Mr. Okeyo Omuga has been slightly unwell and suffering from diabetic and hypertension and was among the many hundreds of Kenyan people who recently traveled to Lioliondo in the Northern Tanzania and visited the famous retired Pastor in search of treatment.
He had also succeeded in turning his lakeside Kakirigu farm in Waware area green in the semi-arid Rusinga Island by introducing new method and technology of mechanized irrigation using the idle waters of Lake Victoria producing vegetables, maize and other cash crops.
Mr Okeyo Omuga will be remembered for having actively participated in the development activities of Rusinga Island in particular and the Suba region in general. He is credited for having been a good organizer and mobilizer when it comes to the question o development and progress.
He was among the founder and patrons of the Rusiga annual cultural festival which brings together sports and cultural dancers from the various sub-clans and communities.
He is survived by his three wives, a large number of children most of them grown ups. His body was rushed to the mortuary in Homa-Bay town for preservation pending the family arrangement for burial, which will be announced later.
Among the leading personalities who sent their condolences to he braved family is Dr Mark Matunga, an aspirant for the position of Homa-Bay County governor who told this writer that he had just spoken to the deceased on Sunday morning and did not expect anything unusual to happen to him therefore his untimely him came as big shock to him.
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