No cheque can buy back Sharon Otieno's life

The late Sharon Otieno Photo Courtesy: The People Daily

Eight years, 42 witnesses, and a mountain of evidence culminated in the conviction of former Migori Governor Okoth Obado, Michael Oyamo, and Caspal Obiero for the killing of Sharon Otieno. Their upcoming sentencing has revived questions about justice for Sharon and her unborn child, the only people who will not be in court on 16 September.

The 2018 abduction, torture and murder of Sharon Otieno, a 26-year-old Rongo University student and mother of three who was 28 weeks pregnant at the time of her death, shocked the nation. For some, including Usikimye Executive Director Njeri Migwi, it sparked a lifelong commitment to protecting women.

At the time of Sharon’s murder, this column called for justice and challenged widespread victim-blaming. Netizens were speculating on her morals, whether she had resisted her death by the knife and even whether she deserved to be killed for having an intimate relationship with the Governor, a married man. In hindsight, her killing foreshadowed the rise in gender-based violence and femicide cases that have since proliferated.

At the time, I argued only five questions mattered. Who killed Sharon, who ordered it, when would the suspects be arraigned, would the implicated governor step down, and how had Chapter 6 become the most disposable part of our constitution? I urged investigators, prosecutors, and the court to deliver a fair, swift, and conclusive verdict because the country's future depended on it.

With a verdict now delivered in one the most reprehensible sexual violence and abuse of office case since the promulgation of the constitution, Sharon's family's willingness to forgive and seek compensation and the Obado’s call for mitigation raises new questions about justice in the eight-year-old case.

Media reports suggest that Obado seeks a non-custodial sentence citing his age, health, and the prolonged case process in mitigation, while Sharon's family says it does not oppose leniency in the victim impact report. The family is also seeking Sh4.7 million in compensation for funeral, burial, court attendance, and childcare costs, saying the financial burden forced them to sell land and livestock.

It is worth reflecting why this seems reasonable to many and what it means for the victims, the justice system and our national values. Mitigation and victim impact statements are well established in Kenyan law. That iconic Supreme Court 2017 Muruatetu ruling struck down mandatory death sentencing and underscored the need to consider offenders' circumstances. The Victim Protection Act (2014) allows victims to describe the harm suffered. Together with the Criminal Procedure Code (Section 175), Section 25 empowers our courts to compensate an injured person.

However, the same laws also draw a clear red line. Compensation cannot excuse murder. No cheque can buy back a life. Articles 26 and 27 of the Constitution guarantee the right to life and equality before the law respectively. Kenya's prisons currently hold thousands of people serving long sentences for far lesser offences. They have no capacity whatsoever to offer a house or a vehicle to anyone. If wealth and status can secure leniency in a murder case as ordinary Kenyans face imprisonment for lesser offences, the court risks undermining those constitutional principles.

Apart from legal precedence, there is also the gender dimension. As the court found, a young pregnant woman was killed to protect the reputation and interests of a powerful older man and state officer who should have been bound by Chapter 6 of the Constitution.

Rising femicide rates, anti-femicide activism, new amendments to the sexual offences act and the recent barring of maslaha reflect a growing commitment that gender-based violence and impunity, regardless of the offender’s status, must end. Court rulings in India, South Africa and Uganda reinforce this shift.

None of this means Sharon's family should be denied compensation for their losses. The law allows for compensation, but compensation cannot substitute punishment for murder. In the final instance, the measure of whether Kenya's justice system can protect the powerless will be seen not only by the conviction of Obado, Oyamo, and Obiero on 23 July, but by their sentencing on September 16.

This opinion was also published in the Saturday Standard, 29 August 2026.