Simu za Wenyewe Mtaachana Nazo” Kenyan Man Goes Blind After Withdrawing Money From Her Grandmother’s Mpesa Unnoticingly
I never believed in consequences the way I do now. My name is Kenneth Lusweti from Busia, and for three years I have lived with a painful reminder of the worst mistake of my life.
After graduating from university, I thought life would finally open up for me. Instead, it shut me down. Job applications went unanswered. Interviews never came. Depression slowly swallowed me. My mother, who had raised me single-handedly, had already passed away. The only family I had left was my grandmother — my shosho — a hardworking woman running several small businesses. People said she was “filthy rich,” but to me she just felt distant.
“I felt abandoned,” I remember. “I thought she had so much money in her M-Pesa from her daily businesses, yet I was struggling alone.”
One day, temptation defeated me. I had access to her phone and secret PIN because she trusted me. That trust became my weapon.
“I told myself it was just borrowing,” I confess. “I withdrew Ksh 200,000 quietly, convincing myself I would return it once I got a job.”
That same week, my grandmother traveled from Busia to Mombasa for a holiday. I felt safe. I felt clever. But God was watching.
While at a supermarket in Mombasa, she noticed her balance was lower than expected. She immediately checked her transactions and called me.
“Kenneth, kuna mtu aliiba Ksh 200,000 anaitwa James Nyaga,” she told me on phone. That was the name that appeared in the transaction message.
My heart nearly stopped. But I lied.
“It’s not me, shosho. I don’t know anything about that.”
She sighed heavily and said words that still echo in my mind:
“Mtoto wangu aliyefanya hivi ni mwizi na hatutamsamehe. Labda ni yule conductor tulilipa.”
I remember laughing quietly after the call. I thought I had won. I thought I was smarter than her.
But later that evening, she called again. Her voice was calm — too calm.
