From youth fund to Tatu City, controversy stalks Muhoro
Director of the Criminal Investigations Ndegwa Muhoro speaks before the Senate Public Investment Committee on October 19, 2016 at Parliament Buildings. He has been accused of insulating criminals. PHOTO | DENNIS ONSONGO | NATION MEDIA GROUP
What you need to know:
- Before being appointed, an Independent Police Oversight Authority report had declared him unfit to hold the office.
- In the Tatu City land scandal, Mr Muhoro was adversely mentioned for allegedly interfering with investigations.
Most top police officers appointed alongside the Director of Criminal Investigations Ndegwa Muhoro to head the National Police Service in 2010 have fallen by the wayside.
But despite the accusations that have been levelled against him, Mr Muhoro still holds his position.
This week, Mr Muhoro hit the headlines after city lawyer Ahmednasir Abdullahi recorded a statement with the police, accusing him of assembling a team of five police officers to kill him.
“My contact warned me to take the information very seriously,” Mr Abdullahi said in the statement, alleging that the officer had told him that the team had been monitoring his phone calls and discovered that he was out of the country.
MUHORO UNFIT
Mr Muhoro has denied the accusation, saying “I do not, for the slightest moment, give any credibility to those wild, obnoxious and irresponsible allegations”.
His appointment on August 26, 2010 on the eve of the promulgation of the Constitution was seen as an attempt by then President Mwai Kibaki to ensure that Mr Muhoro escaped the requirements of vetting, although he was later vetted when a new police law came into force in 2012.
As the DCI, he often had serious turf wars with Ms Grace Kaindi before her dramatic departure.
Before being appointed, an Independent Police Oversight Authority report had declared him unfit to hold the office.
“We have to consider the larger public interest and ask ourselves whether it is right to wish away serious doubts or questions raised on integrity,” stated the report.
CRIMINALS' PUPPET
The report notwithstanding, Mr Muhoro was appointed, although insiders indicate his main interest at the time was the position Ms Kaindi got.
Mr Muhoro has been accused of being used by corrupt cartels, including those who stole funds from the National Youth Service, to clear them. He has consistently denied the claims.
In the Tatu City land scandal, Mr Muhoro was adversely mentioned for allegedly interfering with investigations by authoring two conflicting reports to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
The dispute, it appears, is the root of the latest controversy involving Mr Abdullahi.
KOINANGE LAND CASE
And after this week’s dramatic claim by the vocal lawyer, Mr Muhoro said: “My continued resistance on his attempted machination would explain his sporadic bouts of vitriol and calumny against me.”
His name also featured in the long-running Koinange land dispute after Ms Eddah Wanjiru Mbiyu, who was stripped of the right to administer the former minister’s property, accused him of protecting lawyers who “were siphoning money from the estate”.
In another angle to the Koinange land dispute, the DCI was also among senior government officials named in court by two widows, Ms Alice Adamba and Ms Tabitha Wanjiru, whose husbands had been killed.
In another controversy Mr Muhoro was accused of protecting criminals.
Mr Samuel Barongo, a former Nakuru Flying Squad commander, took Mr Muhoro to court for attempting to transfer him after the officer arrested suspected robbers of goods worth Sh70 million.
According to the widows, their husbands, Martin Karanja Mbugua and Fredrick Mungai, were hired by senior government officials and some members of the Koinange family allegedly to kill Maasai land rights activist Moses Mpoe before they too met their death reportedly at the hands of the police.
