Is there any possibility that David Aquinas Kashitoshito may have been buried in Sweden? One Kenyan who plucked the rumour from the atmosphere right into the Internet was blogger Munala wa Munala who wondered aloud why it was becoming almost treasonable for Kenyans to ask questions on critical issues within the community in Stockholm. Passing a comment at KSB, Munala wrote:
“In the name of transparency and accountability, is it wrong for Kenyans to ask some burning questions? With all due respect, there are rumours that the late Kashito was not a Kenyan citizen and that his body was buried here in Sweden. Can someone from the Mr. Muirani committee shade some light on the above?”
The following day, Friday November 28, 2008, Mr. Muirani, the Chairman of the embattled Kashito committee, did shade some light over the issue. According to Muirani, who released a statement via the Njoro blog, the body of Kashito had been deposited at the Lee funeral home in Nairobi and was buried (the same day he was releasing the statement) at Langata cemetery in Nairobi.
The Muirani statement was not copied to KSB, probably because Muirani is upset, angry or irritated with the blog for having published the first installment of the Kashito story which tended to put him under serious pressure as the Chairperson of the Kashito committee.
Commentator after commentator went after Muirani’s jugular with Fagilia even urging him to avail information “as soon as possible” in order to prevent the personal reputations of Kashito committee members from being damaged by what was increasingly snowballing into a “Kashitogate” kinda scandal”.
If Muirani has developed a grudge with KSB on the basis of the story, we may have to ask the question as to why he continues to “preach forgiveness of sins” and reconciliation because KSB scribes had to surf a long distance to Njoro’s hide-out in order to get what Muirani was saying and only after a tip off by a KSB spy.
Prior to Munala’s concerns about rumour that Kashito may have been buried in Sweden, a different kind of rumour was doing the rounds over the phone where “Kenya-Stockholm Olympic rumour mongers” had retreated to do business with an assortment of contacts and fans who were thirsty to get the latest update on the Kashito front.
In the absence of official details from Kashito committee which appeared to have been hoarding information, Kenya-Stockholm rumour mongers were doing “booming business” in air time and you digested a different version of the story depending on the channel you tuned to. In fact, leading channels in the business were all busy for long periods and you had to try several times before going through to the Chief Executives of the numerous Rumour companies that have sprung up in Kenya-Stockholm.
CREMATED
Appalling as it sounds, KSB is one of the biggest customers of different Stockholm-based “Rumour Networks” that feed the markets in greater Kenya-Stockholm consumer base. Just like the Global economic crisis that is starved of capital, the rumour sector has a tendency of going into crisis when there is acute shortage of stories and it is during these “hard times” when KSB normally goes looking for Purity at the Kenyan Embassy. Now that there is something, the “Oslo Jamhuri” can wait.
To get back to the Kashito thing, another rumour that was hot mid this week had it that Kashito’s body had been cremated because the body could not be transported to Kenya since Kashito was allegedly not a Kenyan passport holder. According to one of the channels, Kashito had a Botswanan passport which he allegedly acquired after he moved to Botswana from Kenya before travelling to Sweden for further studies.
When the Kashito committee visited the Embassy early last week to look for help, the Ambassador is reported to have refused to meet them allegedly because of the Kashito passport problem. The Passport factor was said to have been responsible for the failure of Kashito to use his Kikuyu name during his interactions with Kenyans in life because he was apparently afraid that any blowing up of his real identity as a Kenyan could be catastrophic to his designs.
The issue is said to have been so sensitive that even the Kashito committee steered clear from getting his names out in the open until the names were broadcast by mrseed.com. A top Narc-Kenya official did admit that when he met Kashito in life, the Kenyan told him that he was a Nigerian, information that tended to confirm that there was something funny with Kashito’s identity.
The Ambassador is whispered to have kept away from the Kashito committee because of potential scandal that could have blown out in case things turned ugly. The rumour that the body may have been cremated for the ashes to be transported to Kenya had it that since Kashito was holding a passport from Botswana, working out documentation through the Kenyan Embassy in Stockholm for his body to be transported to Kenya was going to be mission impossible.
If the papers were to be worked out from the nearest Embassy of Botswana in Scandinavia, a similar problem was bound to arise while there would be nobody to receive the body in Botswana even if the paper work went through. This problem was apparently well known to the Kashito family and, according to the rumours, it is the impossibility of resolving the problem that reportedly led to the decision of the family that close family members travel to Sweden to view the body before it could allegedly be cremated and the ashes transported to Kenya. This is not to suggest that the body was cremated but to explore the rumours. Continued in Part 3 below…
Okoth Osewe
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