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Second liberation icon Kenneth Matiba's remains will reportedly be cremated later this week in line to his wishes to the family.
A source privy to the burial preparations for the multiparty hero said the veteran politician will be incinerated at the Lang’ata crematorium in Nairobi on Friday.
“The committee has tentatively agreed that Mzee will be cremated in Lang’ata on Friday according to his wishes which the family felt it has a duty to honour. There will be a funeral service in Nairobi on Wednesday and at Ihura Stadium on Thursday before the cremation on Friday, which will be largely a private family affair,’’ the source revealed.
His daughter Ivy Matiba refused to comment on the matter, noting that she's not the family's spokesperson.“Kindly, I am not the family spokesperson so I cannot comment, but I will get the spokesperson to comment on the issue,” she told the Sunday Nation.
In 1994, Matiba was quoted in a local daily saying he wouldn't like to have fund drives or fanfare during his sendoff.
“If a man was not assisted while he was alive, why should people raise funds for him after he dies? When I die, there will be no fund-drives or fanfare,” he reportedly said.
“After all, the Kikuyu traditionally never buried their dead. They used to take the bodies into the forest to be devoured by hyenas. Was that not wisdom,” he posed.
George Gachugu, who is Matiba’s first cousin told the Nation that the family would soon make public the funeral plans. “I urge Kenyans to be a little bit patient as we shall be announcing whether or not to cremate Mr Matiba,”Gachugu said.
Matiba was also quoted saying that he wouldn't love to have a state funeral accorded to him, stating that only Kenya’s founding father Mzee Jomo Kenyatta deserved one.
“All other people, including me, should be buried by their families when they die.”
The former Kiharu MP succumbed to cardiac arrest last week while receiving treat at the Karen Hospital. He died at the age 85.