Bomet Governor Joyce Laboso to be buried in Kisumu on Saturday

The family of the late Joyce Laboso on Tuesday announced that the Bomet Governor will be buried in Kisumu County on Saturday.

Citizen Digital has learnt that the first funeral service will be held in Nairobi on Thursday at the All Saints Cathedral.

Later the same day, the body will be transferred to Bomet for an overnight vigil. On Friday, a funeral service will be held at the Bomet Green Stadium.

She will then be buried on Saturday at her marital home in Fort Ternan, Koru, Kisumu County.

On Monday, Laboso’s husband Dr. Edwin Abonyo intimated how political rivals chastised her candidature in Bomet because of where was married.

“Her running was something unprecedented in this country as she was married elsewhere but vied for a political seat elsewhere…it all started in Sotik,” he said at the Lee Funeral Home in Nairobi.

The reluctant university lecture was ushered into politics following her sister Lorna Laboso’s untimely demise.

Lorna was killed in a plane crash in Narok alongside former Cabinet Minister Kipkalya Kones on June 10, 2008.

In a by-election held in September 2008, Joyce Laboso was announced as the new Sotik MP; she took over announcing her intentions to continue with her sister’s work.

Five years later, Joyce ditched the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party for William Ruto’s United Republican Party (URP) on whose ticket she defended the Sotik seat.

WOMAN OF MANY FIRSTS

In the same year, Laboso rose to become the National Assembly deputy speaker, representing Speaker Justin Muturi in continental conferences.

She became the first woman to hold this position.

During the 2017 general election, Laboso plunged into the epic battle for the seat of Bomet Governor, taking on political titan Isaac Ruto of the Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party.

She became one of the first three Kenyan women to become Governor.