Police officers patrol Nairobi CBD during protests.
Violence yesterday returned to the streets of our capital, this time over the torture and brutal murder of teacher and blogger, 31-year-old father of one, Albert Ojwang, by the police.
First, let me provide you with the story line of this latest criminal conduct by elements within the state – from a summary of 16 media sources prepared for me by Mr Grok, an astoundingly efficient assistant – and then I shall explain why I’m writing about it at all.
Ojwang, a teacher of Kiswahili and REST (do they still call it Religious Studies?) and blogger in Voi, died at the Central Police Station in Nairobi on June 8, 2025.
He was strangled and beaten to death by police officers; the pathologists insist on saying that his neck was squeezed, suffered blunt instrument trauma to the head and had soft tissue injuries.
In a statement, CID boss Mohamed Amin said he was picked up by detectives from his father’s home in Kakoth Village, Kabondo-Kasipul Constituency, Homa Bay County and driven to Central Police Station. His testimony was that the victim was wasn’t taken to some black site for torture.
Ojwang was a bold commentator on political and social issues on X and Facebook. The six plain-clothes officer who arrested him told the father as they handcuffed his son that he had “insulted a senior person on X”.
Apparently, Deputy Inspector-General of Police Eliud Lagat had accused Ojwang of defaming him by claiming that the DIG had formed a ring of loyalist officers who controlled illicit cashflows within the police force.
Ojwang was transferred 350 kilometres without a court order as required by law. The police claimed that he had been found unconscious in his cell at 2am on Sunday, June 8, after banging his head against a cell wall and claimed that he was rushed to hospital but pronounced dead on arrival.
After examining him on June 10, five pathologists, led by government pathologist Dr Bernard Midia, said Ojwang’s injuries were clearly not self-inflicted.
His death was the result of serious head injuries, neck compression, and multiple soft tissue trauma across his body, including the head, neck, upper limbs, trunk, and lower limbs.
Dr Midia said the injuries were “consistent with external assault” and showed signs of a struggle, including “self-defense injuries.”
He had bled on the face, the sides and back of his head and his injuries could therefore not have been inflicted by a single blow against a wall. They ruled out suicide.
Those who saw Ojwang’s body, including the family lawyer, said he was in a terrible state. He had serious injuries; a swollen head, nose bleeding, deformed head, extensive bruising and scratches which showed he may have been dragged.
LSK President Faith Odhiambo said the autopsy findings were evidence of “torture” and “brutal murder”.
These are findings that could not be lied away.
The authorities have since walked away from their ridiculous suicide theory and the Independent Policing Oversight Authority has summoned 17 police officers and has already questioned 13.
Inspector-General of Police Douglas Kanja retracted the banging head theory and apologised for the lies that the public was initially told.
Mr Raila Odinga, one half of the ruling duo, has condemned the killing and President William Ruto was quite clear in his statement that Ojwang “died at the hands of the police,” terming the blogger’s death “heartbreaking and unacceptable.”
Now on to the reasons why this is not and cannot be police murder as usual. Why the anger and brutality in the treatment of Ojwang?
Was it just routine police contempt for raia or had he hurt people’s feelings? Do you get beaten to death for hurting people’s feelings?
The people who appear to have tampered with the CCTV at Central Police Station, what was the basis of their confidence that they would act with such impunity and get away with it?
The officers who arrested Ojwang and transferred him 350 kilometres in defiance of the law and procedure, why did they behave that way?
Do police officers normally obey the law and procedure or the Constitution is just a set of suggestions? Finally, the glib, practised suicide lies the police told, does it mean that officers and their superiors do not know that they have an obligation to be truthful?
I have been a life-long champion of the police, but I must say that 60 years after independence, they still treat citizens as if they are still the inhuman, brutal agency of an occupying power.
This is an opportunity to decriminalise the force: it is not a lying, murderous criminal gang. Officers are the law, they should behave as such.
This is also an opportunity to rethink this “State within a State” approach to government where institutions are not run by the personnel lawfully entrusted with them but by powerful, illegal ethnic cabals.
You cannot demand excellence from, and enforce accountability on, public officials if they are disempowered and sidelined.
There must be another, better, peaceful way of living our lives.
