Former assistant minister Oduya Oprong dies at KNH

Former Amagoro MP Fredrick Oduya Oprong has died aged 83, his Son Isaac Oprong has confirmed.

The former assistant minister for Economic Planning and National Development, who nearly lost his life in 1994 when he was shot by unknown gunmen in Nairobi, was pronounced dead at around 11.20pm Sunday at the Kenyatta National Hospital.

Since the shooting incident in 1994, Mr Oprong had been living with a bullet lodged in his head as doctors advised that it would have been dangerous to remove it.

Gunmen bent on killing Mr Oprong fired two bullets into his head one evening as he entered his car at his home in Nairobi’s Mariakani Estate.

One bullet was later removed but doctors said extracting the other one would be fatal.

OJAAMONG'S MESSAGE

Busia Governor Sospeter Ojaamong mourned Mr Oprong, praising him for his role in raising the region’s profile before and after Kenya’s independence.

“The county has lost a leader who led a delegation of elders to the then colonial district commissioner to champion for the creation of Busia North Constituency and which came to fruition, thus opening up avenues for creation of more constituencies in the county,” said Mr Ojaamong.

The governor noted that Mr Oprong was instrumental in getting Kenya’s first president Mzee Jomo Kenyatta to visit the region.

“Mzee Oduya was among the first leaders from the region to meet Mzee Jomo Kenyatta upon his release from detention in 1961. This culminated in (Mzee) Kenyatta holding the first rally in Western Kenya at Malaba border.

“The cruel hand of death of death has robbed the county of a man who championed Kenya’s first constitution and whose good rapport (Mzee) Kenyatta and the (Jaramogi Oginga) Odinga family has been replicated to the current generation,” said the governor.