This week, a story of Jacob Ochola Mwai caught my attention.
At 60 plus of age, the polished and soft-spoken Ochola was at pains, seeking to define his torn identity, that of his ethnicity.
This isn't a story of a rugged gold digger looking for inheritance nor a comedian in search of fame and Facebook likes.
It is a story of a man seeking to identify with his roots, that of his father.
By his name, he grew up knowing he was a Luo because his parents were of that tribe.
Born in 1960 in Nairobi, Kaloleni to urbanites parents, Ochola wasn't in any identity crisis.
His parents loved him and gave him the best upbringing.
They gave him Luo names, as a mark of ethnic identity.
He spoke Kijaluo and periodically visited Nyanza, his ancestral home, bonding with his extended family.
Then when he was a teenager, his father died and his identity crisis began.
His mother purportedly pulled him aside, to reveal his true identity.
That the man he had grown to live with, love and play with as his dad was not his real dad, that the man he had mourned and sobbed at his grave was not his real father but an adopted one.
He told Ochola that his real dad was alive and was a senior government official.
He was Kikuyu and therefore Ochola too was Kikuyu, not Luo.
But how? Ochola was jolted, confused and probably momentarily frozen.
Did his adopted dad know he was cheated on before his death? Maybe not, probably he had his suspicion, for Ochola was a spitting mirror reflection of his long time friend and college mate.
Going by the spitting resemblance and the chronological presentation by Ochola, there is a likelihood that he was sired out of wedlock.
The girl was already betrothed and probably, Ochola's adopted father thought he was the real dad.
This was also a time when intertribal marriages were very rare, between Luo and Kikuyu.
It was almost a taboo and Ochola's mother kept the secret to herself, not to arouse suspicion, just to keep her marriage.
This short thesis isn't to castigate any party or to throw a barb at Ochola.
He is himself a man of honour, sounds respectable and is an achiever of accolades.
This story helps us demystify the myth of pure ethnic identity in the urban settlement as defined by politicians.
That is if indeed Jacob Ochola isn't Luo but Kikuyu. Do we still have undiluted blood in the urban communities?
Urbanisation has its share of randy men and women, of insatiable lust and love of sex.
Ethnicity only serves the interest of politicians, banding people together for their sectarian agenda to gain traction since they are people of no substantive agenda, other than ethnic bashing.
Nairobi
Edited by Kiilu Damaris
