By Wednesday 21st January 2016, the Flying Squad Police Officers based at Nairobi County’s Central Command had fully taken over a case that is ordinarily meant to be a civil case.
Cyprian Nyakundi who was kept overnight at Pangani Police Station cells was driven back to their offices as early as 10am and handcuffed onto a seat as officers continued “investigating” the alleged crimes. The officers telephoned the three politicians involved in the saga severally, expressing confidence that they had met their end of the bargain by arresting the blogger who had caused them sleepless nights.
The officers also telephoned officials of the said company Njuca Consolidated Limited as requested them to avail themselves. The usual “good-cop, bad-cop” police mindgames routine went ahead, where one Flying Squad officer pretended to assist Mr. Nyakundi eliminate all his legal woes by handing over control of his social-media accounts, as the others issues death threats, saying they would chop the blogger’s head off.
First to arrive in the Flying Squad offices was Mombasa Governor Ali Hassan Joho who had taken an early flight into Nairobi. His main objective was to first acquaint himself with the most famous blogger. His first impression was that Nyakundi is a young boy, of the same age as his own son, and from then on proceeded to dismiss the blogger with the usual contempt that the old in this country have for the young.
After issuing threats to Mr. Nyakundi, Governor Joho then spent a considerable amount of time at the offices of the Flying Squad boss, after which he departed.
Second to arrive at around 3pm on the same Wednesday was Thika MP Alice Wambui Nganga. She didn’t hold back her comments and was more forthright in her wishes to the Flying Squad officers, who all issued death threats against the blogger.
The Thika legislator was more perturbed by the figure mentioned in the article as a bribe paid out to her by the contractor, not about the scandalous accusations about her affairs with a host of personalities in the business and political circles of Nairobi. She sought to know Nyakundi’s source of information as it seemed to be credible and the figure in question seemed to be accurate.
Officials of Njuca Consolidated were also at the Flying Squad offices as it was later revealed that their complaint was merged together with that of the politicians.
The Flying Squad officers then telephoned Kiambu Governor William Kabogo who seemed unavailable, perhaps opting not to involve himself with the murky scandal, and further incriminating himself in a matter that had been seemingly overtaken by events.
In the meantime, Police filed to detain Cyprian Nyakundi for 10-days inorder to complete investigations, an request that the Director of Public Prosecutions reduced to three days. Ten day requests are normally granted for serious crimes like murder, robbery with violence and the likes.
On social media and especially micro-blogging website Twitter, the hashtag #FreeNyakundi took over Kenya trending for nearly 12 hours as Kenyans expressed their dismay at the waste of State machinery into pursuing bloggers instead of deploying the Flying Squad to fight criminals and terrorists.
Indeed the reason why Kenya has become a “hotbed of terror” as was aptly phrased by CNN, is because over 20 Flying Squad officers were deployed to handle Cyprian Nyakundi’s fictitious case, side-gigs as henchmen for the ruling class, jobs that policemen find more lucrative.
In the next part, we unravel the connection between the main protagonists. Stay tuned.
