Kisumu West Member of Parliament Olago Aluoch ranks among the most popular leaders in the entire Luo Nyanza region for many reasons.
Among these is his vast political experience, this being his third term in parliament.
He is also recognized as one of the few leaders who have survived the wave of opposition leader Raila Odinga and his Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) in the region, winning his two last terms on a Ford-Kenya party ticket.
Aluoch is easily identifiable by the large scar that sits on the right side of his face.
The scar emanated from a car accident back in 1998 in Oyugis Town, Homa Bay County.
On that fateful day, the lawmaker was travelling from the Kisii High Court, before two donkeys suddenly emerged from the bushes chasing each other as they crossed the road.
Sitting on the back seat reading a book, Aluoch only heard a bang before passing out, never to see what actually happened.
He was later told that the driver could not help it and ended up crashing into the animals killing one on the spot.
The car rolled and hit a tree trunk that had just been cut.
‘‘I was travelling from Kisii High Court in 1998, and at Oyugis, two donkeys racing each other crossed the road out of the bush. I was at the back seat, reading and I heard a bang.
"I didn’t know what happened,’’ he was quoted by a Standard publication dated 2016.
The trunk crashed the window of the back seat and broke it, before hitting his face, breaking his lower jaw and severely cutting into his face.
With the driver stranded and worried about having subjected him to the same, he would be saved by his junior advocates whom he had left in Kisii and who were luckily using the same route.
"(I’m told) the driver panicked. He got out of the car and started worrying that he’d killed “Mheshimiwa.” Luckily, the junior advocates who I’d left in court seeing as I was their senior, were passing by the same route. They quickly organized for me to be rushed to the closest hospital,’’ he is further quoted.
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