I WANT TO SELL KIDNEY TO BUY A LOPTOP.

Although he knows the operation to harvest one of his precious kidneys might go horrible wrong and even kill, and regardless of the fact that his torso will forever remain with an ugly 20-inch scar, Walter Otieno is daring any willing buyers to give him a call anytime.

And the young man acknowledges that one of his kidneys he so badly wants to dispose is not in his body as supplementary decorative organ yet he still insists one must go not necessarily at the black-market rates if this is the only way to achieve his dream.

“I know I am young and healthy and my kidney can fetch good money but I won’t take that route. I am not a greedy person. I don’t want to over quote and scare away potential buyers,” a distraught-looking but overtly determined Otieno declares. For only Sh50,000, Otieno is ready to part with his kidney. Right or left, the choice is for the buyer! “It is unfortunate because I never thought I would resort to this kind of business.

Honestly, I have no other decent means to raise the cash to replace my stolen laptop,” Otieno, who scored an A- in his KCSE in 2009, narrates. “I am pursuing my dream degree. Bachelor of Science in Computer Science at The University of Eldoret, formerly, Chepkoilel University College. I am so passionate about computers and the entire IT industry.

This is where my future and the ticket from poverty lie,” Otieno says, raising his voice animatedly. But he owned a laptop which he had bought with money he saved when he briefly taught as a temporary untrained teacher after his KCSE. “They stole my laptop. Those shameless thieves as I left campus on the night of 11th August last year. I feel so sad.

I miss it dearly but luckily, I only sustained minor injuries” Otieno recalls, his face enveloped in sadness. “My single mother is not in a position to help me out, neither are my relatives and even pleas to Good Samaritans have not borne any fruits. I will never revenge and steal someone’s laptop unlike those mean thugs,” Otieno says sullenly.

He gives reasons why he badly needs a personal laptop: “Because our university does not have a well equipped Computer Lab and its access is limited. In the past one and a half academic year, we have been to the Computers Lab for less than five times yet Computer Science is more practical than theoretical,” Otieno reveals, but he absolves the University from blame because it is young and the initiative is on us students to find solutions to computer scarcity problems. I can’t entertain the though of getting into my third year in school without a laptop. It is better I sell what belongs to me.

“It is a difficult decision but I would rather live with a single kidney than live with myself as an incompetent graduate and a failure. I don’t want to finish my studies as a half-baked graduate too good in theory but not adept in practical,” Otieno vow. He says it was by God’s grace and an understanding school Principal that he completed Form Four studies despite having hefty unpaid school fees.

“Luckily, the balance was written off after I broke the school record in KCSE,” Otieno, the first born in a family of four explains excitedly. “I will literally run to the buyer even if it is in the middle of the night because, “No pain, no gain,” he says. However, Otieno may never sell his kidney without landing into hot soup with Kenyan law enforcers.

Unless one is donating a kidney in Kenya, it is illegal to sell any human part. Although kidney sale is illegal in Pakistan and Philippines, it is a thriving business with a single kidney fetching $3000. Most of the money, however, goes to middle-men.

In Iran where selling a kidney is regulated, a healthy kidney sells for about $6,000 while in China, organs are often procured from executed prisoners. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that organ-trafficking accounts for 5 percent to 10 percent of all kidney transplants in the world.