By Manuel Odeny, @TheNyanzaNews

Migori senator Eddy Oketch has narrated how a lawyers’ help saved him from being a tout for life and paved his way into a better life.

Oketch, an orphan said wakili Kennedy Okong’o saved him from being a tout living in Pandpieri slums in Migori town by offering him full scholarship.

Oketch said he received a calling letter to Friends School Kamusinga after sitting for his primary national examinations at Migori Primary.

Sh100,000 was required for him to join form one which he failed to do so in term one and decided to save money by being a tout between Migori-Kisii-Kisumu route and collecting donation through well wishers.

“When my hope was dwindling I went to the district commissioner who wrote an introduction letter for a pro-forma which I used to collect money from the public,” Oketch said.

He said he used shift between his work as a tout and collecting money while living with relatives in Migori town.

By the end of first term the senator said he had only collected Sh800.

“One day I went around KCB bank to seek help and a gentleman gave me the largest amount I had ever collected and gave me the first cheque in my life, while I was walking away he collected me back and cancelled the cheque,” Oketch narrated.

He said Okong’o had given him Sh3,500 and after saying thanks when he was leaving he was collected back.

“He asked me how much I had collected and said I will never make it to school. He took away the check and called a personal assistant and told her to make sure I had to report in office on Monday,” the senator remembers.

He said on Monday when he came he found Okong’o had paid up the entire Sh100,000 annual fees, had called Friends School Kamusinga to secure his admission and had shopping left for him.

The opportunity he said opened the road for him to study abroad in South Africa and the west.

“When I tell this story I realise mine is a small gesture to a man I called my father, uncle, friend and now my business partner. I am indebted to him and his family,” Oketch said.

He was speaking in Ageng’a village, Nyatike sub-county in a special Catholic Church mass organised by Okong’o and his friends from The University of Nairobi Law graduation class of ’92 which is formed to salute members’ parents.

Migori governor Ochillo Ayacko, Nyatike MP Tom Odege and other dignitaries in the law profession also attended the function.