The loss of Cyrus Jirongo left a hole that words cannot fill. For his family, the shock of his sudden death on December 13 in a road accident along the Nairobi-Nakuru Highway felt unreal, a painful intrusion into what should have been an ordinary night.
At a requiem mass at Christ Is the Answer Ministries (CITAM) in Nairobi on Saturday, December 27, his widow, Anne Jirongo, spoke with raw emotion, recounting the moments before the tragedy and the heart-stopping news that followed.
Anne painted a picture of the last hours she spent with Jirongo on December 12, Jamhuri Day. They had a brief meeting outside a Nairobi shopping mall, during which he updated her on his day.
“On the 12th of December, on Jamhuri Day, Cyrus called me at around 12:34 pm, and we spoke for about 3 minutes and 45 seconds. He called again at around 2:30 aP and asked me where I was, and I told him that I was in the supermarket. He said he wanted to see me, so he drove to where I was...He told me he was going to dream and build my castles in the office, but later he would be going to see Speaker Wetang'ula,” she said.
That evening, Anne tried to rest, but sleep eluded her. The quiet of the night was shattered at 3:20 am on December 13 by a call from her husband’s number. On the line was a stranger, delivering the unimaginable news.
“At first I thought it was a prank, but then the officer identified herself and said she was a corporal of a Naivasha police station,” she recalled.
Together with her daughter Sonia, Anne rushed to Naivasha, unable to reconcile how her husband had ended up there when he was last in Karen and planning to travel to Gigiri.
The truth hit her like a storm: Jirongo had died instantly when his Mercedes-Benz collided with a Busia-bound Climax bus at Karai along the Nairobi-Nakuru Highway.
The autopsy revealed severe fractures from the impact. Authorities from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations are investigating the accident, with the bus driver already under scrutiny.
Anne described the emotional burden of informing the rest of the family, each call heavier than the last. “Mama, this is no longer a rescue mission, Mzee has left us,” she recounted being told by the police commandant.
Coordinating with Lee Funeral Services to arrange a hearse, she confronted the stark reality of her loss, feeling the fragile line between life and death.
Cyrus Jirongo will be laid to rest at his ancestral home in Lumakanda, Kakamega County, on December 30, as friends, political colleagues, and family prepare to honor the life of a man whose sudden passing left a community in mourning.
