Corporal Jones Nyamu Muthui is a troubled man. A depressed police officer battling suicidal thoughts whose genesis streamed from his sworn duty of maintaining law and order.
In a Saturday, October, 12 interview with The Daily Nation, Muthui said he had been contemplating killing himself daily. A problem he linked to his boss.
Muthui decided to speak out after he took the advice from colleagues who were worried about him after the police officer revealed his suicidal thoughts to them.
The tribulations of the Corporal Muthui began after he nabbed a racket that was thieving compensation money from clueless Internally Displaced Persons.
The cartel that swindled money from vulnerable Internally-Displaced Persons (IDPs) was cracked by Muthui in 2018. According to the investigator, the cartel used identification documents of the IDPs to siphon millions of shillings in collusion with managers of a bank that was the custodian of the money.
In 2019, Muthui discovered that one Margaret Wangoto Gathoni allegedly ran an extortion club that traversed the country taking cash from IDs with the false promise of placing them in a genuine list of beneficiaries.
Gathoni is reported to have used the identification documents of the IDPs to generate a list presented to the bank which necessitated the release of money meant for the IDPs. She and her team, according to Muthui, pocketed the millions instead of handing the money to the IDPs.
Until 2017, Gathoni was a member of the National Coordination Consultative Committee on Internally Displaced Persons. In July 2018, Muthui was about to present the findings of his investigations in court when Gathoni approached him.
“She promised me Sh300,000 to drop the case. Later she promised Sh3 million so that the file could disappear fully,” Muthui told the Daily Nation.
“I declined once again and told her I would not be intimidated by anyone,” the officer said, despite Gathoni’s claim that she was related to President Uhuru Kenyatta’s family.
Muthui’s refusal to be coerced into abetting a crime was the first step he took towards his despair. Not long, his boss summoned and asked him to hand over the file. Muthui did not budge.
“I refused and requested him to make it formal. I asked him to do a memo to me requesting the same and also that we do an inventory of the file because it is the procedure required when handling over high-profile cases like the one I was on,” the police officer stated.
After his disagreement with his boss, Nandi County Criminal Investigations Officer Sammy Mukeku, Muthui was transferred to Lamu.
He turned down the transfer and reported his boss to the internal Affairs Unit, the police department that handles the affairs of police officers. Nothing came out of his report to the Internal Affairs Unit, Muthu lamented.
Gathoni said she was aware of the investigations and that Muthui had questioned her, promising to take her to court. She said she was ready to face him in court and defend herself.
She added that she has never offered anyone a bribe and would not do so in the future.
