Residents in a Kenyan town of Migori town were on Thursday treated to drama when a man bought his own coffin in preparation for his death over domestic squabbles with his wife.
The man known as Awilo JaSiaya, who hails from Siaya, approached a coffin maker in the town and asked for the price of a coffin, NairobiNews reports.
He said he was ‘tired’.
“He was wearing a reflector jacket and we thought he had come to inquire for the price on behalf a boda boda welfare organisation, which often send’s representatives when their colleagues die,” Alphonce Odhiambo, a carpenter told NairobiNews.
Mr Odhiambo said he told the man that the coffin costs Sh15,000 and that he haggled for an agreeable price of Sh13,000 which he promptly paid.
“When we asked him who was going to be buried in the coffin, he said he was supposed to be the body. Then he immediately jumped into several coffins, tried each out before picking his right size,” Mr Odhiambo narrated.
The man later paid for a motorbike which took him in the coffin to his house.
Riders said that the usual fare for the short distance to the man’s home at Aroso estate is Sh50 but he paid them handsomely so they happily ferried him home.
“My wife has been troubling me. I’m fed up with my wife’s troubles. So I’ve planned this funeral because I’m a walking corpse,” Mr Awilo told journalists.
He said he has been married for 18 years and has three children but his wife has been “a constant pain in the neck”.
“When we started out I was just a water vendor but we lived happily until my wife started getting loans from organisations. That’s when my woes began,” Mr Awilo lamented.
He said his wife has been giving him a hard time ever since her fortunes changed for the better.
He also said he has been afraid to talk with his mother-in-law over his marital problems as required by Luo tradition because he is a shy man.
But neighbours who spoke to journalists said the man is the source of his marital problems and was kicked out by his wife from their rented house because of his antics.
“He is always drunk and despite having adult children the man always demands for his conjugal rights and insist on having them infront of his children. Whenever his wife turns down his demands he gets violent,” a neighbour, only identified as Otieno, said.
“Sometimes he ties her (his wife) in the compound and demands sex,” another neighbor said.
“He once walked into a Mortuary and told the attendants that he had a body which was supposed to be preserved before being restrained as he tried to enter into a freezer,” a mortician said.
Shocked neighbours looked on as the man lay inside the coffin and insisted that he won’t leave until his wife comes for him.
