The father of a lady who was allegedly married to a member of the national parliament’s upper house, the Council of States has accused the latter of abandoning the dead body of his estranged wife in a mortuary for over a week.
According to Vinancio Locaa, the father of the late Achayo Margret, Hon. Okello Odong-Too Lawiri, a lawmaker on the SSOA ticket, went to their village, picked his daughter, and took her to Juba ostensibly as a wife but later abandoned her for her niece.
He told Radio Tamazuj over the weekend that he was taking the remains of his daughter to the village for burial.
“Today I want to inform the public of a sad story that has broken my family apart. A man by the name Hon. Okello Odong-Too Lawiri who is an MP in the Council of States, took my daughter and brought her to Juba in the name of marriage but later abandoned her in a critical condition,” he explained. “Today (Friday) I am taking my daughter home for burial. He (Odong-Too, MP) abandoned my child (Achayo Margret) in a bad condition. My daughter would have died in the house alone if not for the help of her friend who rushed her to the hospital where she passed on. When this incident happened, we called the man to come and take his wife to their home for burial as our tradition demands but he refused.”
“We tried to engage his people at different levels to settle the issue at a family level but he maintained his position saying he is not coming,” a crestfallen Locaa added.
He said that the worst part of it all was that the legislator also impregnated his granddaughter.
“Odong-Too impregnated the child of my eldest daughter (sister to the deceased). He left my deceased daughter and insisted he wants to marry the young girl who is the niece of the deceased, something our tradition does not accept,” he stated. “This issue has divided my family. My daughter died due to serious stress having been rejected, frustrated, and abandoned by the man who after staying with her as husband and wife, left her and went after her daughter (niece).”
“The body of my daughter has been lying in the mortuary for one week now,” he added.
Locaa said they reported the case to the police and requested a go-ahead to bury his daughter as the case proceeds in court.
“This man (Odong-Too) has caused so much pain in my family and I need help, people should help me out,” he lamented. “I want the responsible authority to lift the immunity of this man so that I can stand with him in a court of law.”
According to the family, the late Achayo was buried at her ancestral home in Magwi County’s Pajok Payam in Eastern Equatoria State on Monday.
When contacted, Odong-Too flippantly said his relationship with the deceased ended a while back.
“First of all, at my age, I cannot elope with a girl. I indeed had a relationship with the girl in 2019 but it ended. We spent over a year and some months without talking to each other and we ended. This information has been put out by the SPLM-IO to tarnish my political career and image,” he said. “It has never happened in South Sudan that if you court someone’s daughter and something happens to her, you have to treat them even after the relationship has ended. Our courtship ended and I have evidence. If they have a problem, let them go to court instead of going to the media. Let them seek legal redress instead of going to the media to do propaganda.”
On impregnating the niece of the deceased, the parliamentarian said the information was doctored and fabricated.
“There is nothing like that, I am happily married and I have opened a case against one of the media houses and the family. First, they said I am HIV positive and when they failed with that strategy, they said I promised the girl marriage but left her and as a result, she died of a broken heart,” he clarified. “Now they are saying I impregnated the lady’s niece. These are all falsehoods. I grew up in Acholi culture and I have nothing to do with these useless issues and accusations.”
At this point in the interview, the now livid lawmaker flew off the handle and threatened to take any media house, including Radio Tamazuj, to court in the event they publish the accusations leveled against him.