Family’s joyous reunion after 20 years

Sometime in the year 2000, Stephen Njehia stormed out of their home in Nakuru following a row with his father, Daniel Ndungu, and vowed to never return.

Njehia, then 18, torched his house in a final show of defiance and perhaps to send an ominous signal of his imminent disappearance which would torment his family for 20 years.

When Njehia walked out on his family, President Moi was still at the helm (he died in February this year), President Mwai Kibaki has served out his two terms (in between, Kenya has enacted a new constitution), and President Uhuru Kenyatta is on his seventh year in office.

By the time Njehia’s father died in 2015, his son had been missing for 15 years and it would be another five years before he would be traced.

On Wednesday, a tearful Rachel Wanjiru, 68, was reunited with her son, now 38, ending a dreadful ordeal that had shattered their lives.

Two daughters

Ms Wanjiru was accompanied by her two daughters who were minors when their brother went missing but are now grown-ups aged 34 and 21.

It all started with a disagreement at their home in Karunga in Gilgil Constituency.

“He had a disagreement with his father and before leaving he burnt down his house. He never returned and our attempts at locating were futile,” recalled Ms Wanjiru.

She added that, after he vanished, the family searched for him for days, which turned into months and then long years.

The manhunt would take them to Nakuru, Nyandarua and Nairobi.

“At one point we followed a lead to Kiambu County only to find that we were on the trail of a different person,” Ms Wanjiru recalled on Wednesday, tears welling in her eyes.

Early this month the family got yet another lead, which they pursued, though unenthusiastically given past false alarms. Little did they know this would be it.

Well-built teenager

And unbeknown to them, that joyous reunion would take place only some 93km away in Rumuruti town, where Mr Njehia had been living on the streets.

A neighbour, John Mwangi said he was informed by a friend that a man who looked like Njehia had been seen in Rumuruti.

“We planned with the family and decided to go and check,” Mr Mwangi explained. And there he was, only that this was not the well-built teenager that Ms Wanjiru had known. He was now a dishevelled and haggard man with swollen feet.

And he muttered incomprehensibly. Like the Biblical Prodigal Son, Ms Wanjiru, overcome with emotion, took time to closely look at her long lost son and gently kissed his forehead.

Then mother and son were locked in a tight embrace. She later took a clean piece of cloth, dipped it in water and washed her son’s feet, asking God to heal him.

“I can’t believe that after all these years I have found my son, I thank God for finally re-uniting me with him. I would like to thank everyone who helped us in our search,” she said.

Among them was Mr Kimani Nguyo, a businessman who said he had seen Njehia in the town for years.

Thereafter the happy family along with their neighbour hired a car for a ride home.

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