Deaths mark season of tribulations for Kajembe family

 

Veteran Mombasa politician Ramadhan Kajembe can now rest easy in death.

Like the biblical Job, the former Changamwe lawmaker knew what affliction was.

In slightly over six months, he lost his two wives. And as he was being buried, reports indicated one of his sons and a daughter are fighting for their lives in hospital. 

Kajembe was buried on Saturday after he succumbed to Covid-19-related complications a day before. He was aged 76.

While one of his sons Hatib Kajembe died in 2006, the real trouble started after he exited elective politics scene in 2013 when he lost his attempt to be elected Mombasa senator in 2013 on an ODM ticket.

In 2017, his son Seif Kajembe died in India while receiving treatment for kidney trouble.

The veteran politician explained at the time that his family had “found a donor from the family who was willing to give a kidney to Seif” but that “….his [the son’s] body rejected that kidney and we had to take him back to India.”

Seif would die a few days later. But the outbreak of Covid-19 threw the worse spell on the family. A young family member who had recently recovered from the virus visited them. Early this year, the politician’s first wife Zaharia died, speculated to be from the virus.

Two weeks ago, his second wife, Aziza, also died suddenly, said also to be from the virus. At the time the long-serving MP was hospitalized, too sick to attend her burial at Kwa Shee Cemetery. 

Reports indicate that when Aziza died, the family washed her body while preparing her for burial in line with Islamic rules. It appears this act exposed many other family members to the virus.

But as if this was not enough, Jomvu MP Badi Twalib who is a son-in-law to the Kajembe family told media outlets that another one of Kajembe’s sons and a daughter had also been checked into a hospital.

Twalib, however, dismissed claims the two were in critical condition. He said they were in hospital for normal “check-up.

“Twalib had initially rejected claims that the politician died of the virus. But this could not be denied any more as his burial on Saturday was accorded all the Covid-19 rules, with Ministry of Health officials clad in Hazmat attires doing the honour.

Kajembe served as a councillor in Mombasa for 15 years before winning the Changamwe parliamentary seat in 1997. He retained the seat up to 2013 when he tried his luck to be the first senator from the county under the 2010 constitution.

He served as an assistant minister for Environment in the Kibaki-Raila grand coalition government of 2008-2013.