By Joab Apollo
Tears, curses, demonstrations and Twitter hashtags have not been enough to assuage the anger brought about by the cold blood murder of two brothers, both students, who were visionary enough to establish a pork business.
Kenyan police say the duo had jumped out of a speeding police vehicle after they were arrested on August 1, 2021 for flouting COVID-19 curfew rules in Kianjokama, Embu County, but no one is buying the idea, not even the political class known to come to its defense.
Benson Njiru, 23, was a First Year Law student at Kabarak University, while his doting brother, Emanuel Mutura, 19, was also a student at the Don Bosco Technology Training Institute in Karen. They had woken up very early in the morning of that fateful day to run their new business, but little did they know that the endemic police brutality in the East African country could end their life.
Witnesses say they saw the police clobber them in the head mercilessly, one of them even falling to the ground, before they were bundled together with other curfew hour breakers into a police vehicle. Other accounts hold that while the rest were taken to the cells, the two brothers remained in the vehicle. But police insist they jumped out of a moving vehicle.
Under pressure, Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiangi visited the bereaved family and promised to leave no stone unturned on the matter, a fact that has only rubbed salt on the wound of a Kenyan populace that has gone ahead to narrate heart-rending instances of past cold blood murders whose investigations are yet to be concluded decades later.
“Action will be swift and decisive on any officer found to be culpable. Once again, my condolence to the family.” Said Matiangi as President Uhuru Kenyatta demands answers.
Kenyans believe the state is playing a game of musical chairs. On Twitter they are hammer and tongs against the state under the hashtag #JusticeForKianjokamaBrothers
@Karwaay narrates: “The story of these brothers is such a trigger for me. It’s a reminder of how cops killed my brother, made up stories of what happened…”
@AmnestyKenya says: “The pain of a mother receiving the caskets of her two sons. No woman or sibling deserves such pain.
@Kimanzi writes: Benson Njiru and Emmanuel Mutura left home eager to start their new business and what the future held for them, today their lifeless bodies are being lowered to the ground in the same home they left alive. The pain, the anger. It’s too much to bear.”
Extrajudicial killings remain an eyesore in Kenya. Whether it’s during elections or arrests of rights activists and whistle blowers, police in Kenya have been a law until themselves, with culprits always going scot-free.
Will the case of Kiamjokama brothers be any different? Well, it’s a matter of wait and see.
