Editor’s note: Pithon Mwangi shares the harrowing account of how his uncle was tortured to death in a shocking instance of police brutality.
The increase of the reported cases of police brutality is worrying. Even more worrying is the brazen nature the cases are executed.
Notably, the recent case of the brazen shooting of a mask seller by a police officer in Nairobi CBD has shaken the country to its core.
Boniface Kariuki was minding his business selling masks to protesters when he was accosted by a rogue police officer and shot in the head.
He is currently receiving treatment under critical care at Kenyatta National Hospital, even though it is clear that his life might never be the same again.
What’s more, the increasing number of suspects dying in police custody, the most recent being Albert Ojwang, has rekindled Kenya’s dark past.
It has now emerged that Ojwang may have been tortured to death in police cells under the instructions from senior police officers.
Even more worrying is the increasing number of deaths of suspects whom police claim have committed suicide.
Millennials and older Kenyans have a clear recollection of the police brutality during the Daniel Moi regime.
Personally, Ojwang and Kariuki’s cases have particularly rekindled unbridled police brutality.
A case in point is the year 1996, when my uncle lost his life after being arrested over a car radio theft that took place outside his stall in downtown Nairobi.
A man, who had packed his car outside his stall, returned and discovered that his car radio was missing.
He would proceed to demand that my uncle produce the people who stole his radio, insisting he must have seen them.
My uncle, perplexed, got angry, insisting he was attending to his customers and was not employed by anyone to keep watch over their possessions.
In the heated exchange, the man, obviously well connected, left but without promising to teach my uncle a lesson.
Suffice to say, he returned with police officers later, and that’s how my uncle was arrested. He would later die in police custody.
A post mortem would later reveal he suffered ruptured kidneys from police beatings.
The pursuit of justice was even harder given rogue officers commit the crimes with full knowledge that their colleagues will cover their backs.
My uncle was buried in a sombre ceremony as we remembered he had just retired from employment.
This is just one of the many cases of police brutality and excesses, and it’s obvious there are thousands of such stories.
The current wave of abductions, extrajudicial killings and excesses by the security agencies points to the return of the dark Nyayo days.
Kenyans must join hands to fight off this wave of impunity that has become the hallmark of the Kenya Kwanza regime.
After all, we must question ourselves as Kenyans why the KK regime thinks it’s easy and okay to curtail the freedom of expression.
And if capital offenders – murder, treason and robbery with violence suspects – are taken through the due process, why not persons whose offence is ‘insulting’ the presidency?
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A country slides into anarchy when those in power entrench a belief that due process is for those without connections with the police and the powerful.
Lastly, police officers inclined to execute illegal orders must always remember that, at the right time, they will be held individually culpable for the atrocities they commit.
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