Ex-Assistant Minister Oduya Oprong Dies

The former Amagoro Member of Parliament (MP), Fredrick Oduya Oprong, passed away at the Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH).

Oduya who served as an assistant minister for Economic Planning and National Development reportedly died in the wee hours of Sunday morning.

His son, Isaac Oprong, speaking to the Nation affirmed that his 83-year-old father had died while at the referral hospital.

He was famously known as one of the few people around the world who walked around and carried out his everyday business with a bullet still lodged in his head.

An attack by unknown assailants on the minister at Mariakani Estate in 1993 had placed a bullet in area of his head that was so delicate, doctors declared it too risky to remove.

Oduya was the MP for then Busia North Constituency from 1963 to 1969, and 1974 and 1979. He then served again from 1992 to 1997 after the constituency was renamed Amagoro.

The late Mzee Jomo Kenyatta appointed him Labour assistant minister. In the government of retired President Daniel Arap Moi, Oprong served in the same role under the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development.

Oduya had been in and out of the hospital, having suffered a mild stroke back in 2015.

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