Melida Auma, the mother of slain Rongo University student Sharon Otieno has joined politics.
Auma announced she will contest for the Homa Bay Town West ward representative seat in the next year’s election under United Democratic Alliance (UDA), a party associated with Deputy President William Ruto.
Speaking during an interview with Nation, Auma said she would have preferred to run for the seat under ODM, but she was unlikely to win the ticket.
“I decided to try the MCA seat because I want a better life for my children and grandchildren. It is tough, but I will try,” Auma said.
At the same time, she accused ODM leaders of abandoning her family following the burial of her daughter, who was murdered in 2018.
“I would have wanted ODM, but it is very difficult to get a ticket there. Furthermore, leaders from ODM who had vowed to stand with us before Sharon’s burial abandoned us immediately we lowered her body into the grave,” she added.
Migori Governor Okoth Obado and two others were charged with the murder of Sharon and her unborn child. In July, the court heard that Obado was the biological father of Sharon’s unborn baby.
Government pathologist Dr. Johansen Oduor told the court that Sharon suffered seven stab and two slash wounds. The first stab wound was so severe that it went through her womb, leading to the death of the unborn baby.
Sharon, a second-year student at Rongo University, disappeared on September 3rd, 2018 in Migori and was found dead near Kodera Forest two days later.
Governor Obado confessed he was in a love affair with the 26-year-old mother of three.
