NO RELATION? Kenyan 22-year-old photojournalist Jeff Ochieng with Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye during a meeting between the two in Besigye’s home. Besigye has denied being Ochieng’s father despite the uncanny resemblance. Photo/THE NEW VISION –
Ugandan opposition leader Col. Kizza Besigye on Sunday met Jeff Ochieng, a Kenyan photojournalist who who bears an uncanny resemblance to the Ugandan politician.
In early August, The New Vision wrote a story about 22-year-old Ochieng who has been searching for his father. Ochieng said that for the past 9 years, he had been asked if he was Besigye’s son because of the striking resemblance.
Ochieng arrived in Uganda last week to meet Besigye to look into the possibility of them being related. On Sunday, the two had a cordial meeting at Besigye’s home in Kasangati, Wakiso district. Ochieng also met Besigye’s other family members with whom they dined and took pictures.
After the meeting, Ochieng told New Vision, “I feel much honored and I count myself lucky. We have talked about everything except football. He has told me his background story and where he comes from.”
“I have also told him about my life. There is no chance of any relation,” Ochieng said.
Ochieng was jovial and said his visit to Uganda has not been in vain because in Besigye, he has a friend whom he described as “a welcoming guy.”
Besigye on his part told New Vision that he had indeed seen Ochieng’s picture before they met, and it had been pointed out to him before that the two bore a resemblance. “But there is no possibility or opportunity to consider that I am his father, which if there was, I would celebrate it,” Besigye said.
Ochieng who works with Standard newspaper has never met his father and never got the chance to ask his mother as she died close to 10 years ago.
Ochieng said in an interview published in New Vision, “I loved my mother Elisha Adhiambo so much but unfortunately God did not allow her to live. Probably she could have answered all my questions.”
Besigye said, “I treat it as a good thing that we resemble. Someone has a background I am empathetic to – of losing their parents when they were young. But I think there are many people who look alike. At the end of the day, we are all from the same stock of Adam and Eve. I don’t know what makes people look alike, but I celebrate the fact that we are all interrelated.”
Source- the-star.co.ke
Ugandan Besigye meets Kenyan look-alike, rules out relationship
