“Goodbye love” – Elderly man narrates wife’s last words before being lynched to death
Mwangi Kibaara and his wife were at home on the evening of February 20 this year when a group of irate youngsters barged into their home in Murang’a.
The old couple enjoyed a typical evening; they had even had tea before Mwangi warmed his knees over the fire to ease his arthritic aches.
Growing old together for a couple who had been married since 1973 had deepened their love for one another to the point that they joked about needing a retirement child.
They had no idea that all they had worked so hard to build for 50 years would be ruthlessly destroyed at 10.30 p.m. that day, according to the Daily Nation.
The gang entered the home and declared Mwangi’s 75-year-old wife Mary Njoki a witch, breaking the eerie calm of the evening.
“Come out you witch! Your days of causing death in this village by bewitching our people are over,” one of the intruders said.
No sooner had he stood out to defend the mother of his five children than the mob shoved him away and dragged her out of the house.
After being pulled to a public road 100 meters away from the house, they forced her to sit down and give out a list of fellow witches in the village.
Despite trying to reason with the gang, Mwangi watched as one tyre was put around his wife’s waist and the other around her neck.
He knew things had gotten out of hand when they doused the tyres with petrol and set her ablaze, ignoring her recurrent pleas of innocence.
As the fire raged over her body, Mwangi says his wife feebly beckoned at him to help her out, but he couldn’t.
“I loathed society. I hated life. I strongly felt that God had forsaken me. My wife getting murdered as I just witnessed with zero chance of rescuing her made me hate myself,” he recalls.
As it dawned on the two that there was no way out of the situation, they both accepted that it was the last they were seeing each other.
That was when Njoki muttered the words that will forever remain etched in Mwangi’s mind as he tries to live through his twilight years.
“Tigwo uhoro mwendwa wakwa. Mekunjuraga buri itari undu njui no ndukamake, nindikuroraga ndi matu-ini,” she said feebly.
(Goodbye my love. They will kill me for nothing but have a strong heart. I will be watching over you from Heaven).
After struggling to disentangle herself in vain, Njoki breathed her last as the flames continued to consume her lifeless body.
At some point during the incident, Mwangi lost his consciousness and only came to when police officers came over to take the body to the morgue.
“I do not even know what I want now. Now I don’t have anyone to live for. The government can do what it wants with the case because I don’t care,” he said.
Mwangi adds that as much as it has been three week since the fateful night, he does not care whether anyone is arrested or not.
