• The raiders carted away their timber and machinery as well as household goods.
• The administration had previously accused the couple's children of being behind the theft of chicken in the neighbourhoods.
A Kisii couple is crying for justice after villagers raided its home and destroyed property worth millions of shillings over alleged chicken theft.
Joash and Rudia Okinyi point accusing fingers at a local chief whom they accused of inciting villagers to attack them at Etangi in Birongo, Nyaribari Chache, on Friday evening.
The raiders carted away their timber and machinery as well as household goods.
Joash, 40, and Rudia, 47, say Taracha chief Zachary Nyariki is behind their woes as the attack happened soon after he allegedly addressed a baraza.
But Nyariki denied inciting the villagers to attack the couple's home.
"Yes, I held a baraza but at no time did I instruct villagers to attack my subjects," he told the Star by phone.
The administration had previously accused the couple's children of being behind the theft of chicken in the neighbourhoods.
Villagers told the Star the couple had refused to heed their calls to rein in their children.
"Even the chief had gotten tired of handling their cases," Joel Ombongi said.
Other villager said they acted on the administrator's instructions to attack the home.
"It is him who said he wants the couple moved out of the location and we were essentially carrying out his orders," a youth who participated in the raid said.
Okinyi claimed his marriage to a woman older than himself was the reason for his troubles with villagers and family members.
"There have been run-ins with my brothers and neighbours who say I need a younger wife. My refusal has cost me this. I have not had any problem with her myself," Okinyi said.
He said Rudia is hard working and it was through her he had risen from poverty and was now the envy of neighbours.
"I was away but some of those who were in the baraza said the youth acted on the whims of the chief who told them he had gotten tired with us and doesn't want to see us in his location," Okinyi said.
His wife, Rudiah said she had severally been told by other family members to leave their young man and look for a man her age.
" I have lived with him for 15 years as a wife. We have nine children and through the work of our hands we feed them," she told the Star.
She accused family members of spreading negative information about them and inciting other villagers against them.
The couple want action taken against the chief for the vandalism of their home.
- mwaniki fm