Brilliant promise Okari gave his wife as dowry alternative

Piece by: SAMUEL MAINA

27 June 2023

• He said that when he visited his in-laws accompanied by his father and uncles, they did not demand anything from them as dowry.

During the weekend, journalist Dennis Okari revealed details about the unique process of his marriage to his wife Naomi Joy.

Speaking during the Daughters of Zion meeting held at the Jubilee Christian Church on Saturday, the former NTV journalist revealed that he never paid any dowry before marrying his wife about four years ago.

"I never gave a dowry, when you get married you learn it is the same as an agreement, my wife and I sat down and I told her;

'This is the money I have in my account, if your uncles want to charge me 10 cows and other things, I don't have that kind of money. I want to give you a wedding, take you to a beautiful place for your honeymoon, and build a house for you, but at the moment I don't have that kind of money," Okari said.

Okari said that after he told his wife about his plan, he went to her parents and asked them not to demand dowry from him.

He said that when he visited her in-laws accompanied by his father and uncles, they did not demand anything from them as dowry.

"The promise I made to my wife was, 'I will do something for your mother, and a year later, I will build her a new house'," Okari said.

The former NTV journalist pointed out that dowry is often a problem for many men because sometimes the in-laws ask them to give an amount they cannot afford.

Dennis Okari and Naomi Joy tied the knot in a ceremony attended by invited guests only at Ridgeways Baptist Church in Nairobi on February 15, 2019.

This was about three years after Okari's marriage to fellow journalist Betty Kyallo ended. While speaking on Saturday, the former NTV journalist opened up about the self-harming thoughts that plagued him following the divorce.

Okari admitted that his divorce with the mother of his daughter which came just a few months after their lavish wedding affected him a lot.

He revealed that he once thought of causing harm to his car to forget his ordeal.

"I was driving on Mombasa Road and I thought about causing an accident with my car so that I would go into a coma, and when I woke up, it would all be gone. I looked for a stone on the road but I couldn't see it that night," Okari said.