A
few years ago I was delivering a Prado TX to a Somali (now the late) in
Lodwar. I was with His Son & a cousin of His.We had driven the
whole night from Mombasa & being tired decided to take an early
morning Rest at a certain Hotel in Kitale Town. We checked into the
hotel & proceed
to take a double Room for the three of Us. The Somali guys would share
one bed as I took the other One. We had parked the massive beast in
front of the hotel.
A few hours into our sleep I heard a knock on the door , it was not
closed I said "Ingia" The two Somali guys were
deep asleep so they didn't hear a thing. After saying Ingia the door
slowly opened & what I saw next made me freeze. Two guys in civilian
clothes carrying guns pointed at me ready to shoot came in. One of them
commanded me in swahili , "lala chini". I did as instructed
immediately. The other Officer
went to the other bed ,hurriedly & violently woke up the two Somali
guys from their sleep. We were searched ,the whole room too & taken
to Kitale police station. I was bungled inside a police land cruiser
while the two guys drove with the cops inside the Prado TX.Kumbe
As we had checked into the Hotel, The owner got curious as to how Three
young men had been driving such a big vehicle only to check into one
room.He made a call to the police at kitale police station who came in
in a response to the "threat"We
spent the whole morning at the police station ,were interrogated one by
one by some officers. I gave out all details about my life , my
education history. One even asked me What I studied at
the university of Nairobi and I told him without leaving any detail . Thinking I was lying He went further to ask about lecturers I
mentioned them all by name. They told us that they needed more time to
investigate us & demanded that we leave our national ids &
driving licenses & proceed to lokichar with a certain pass that had
been written- that we were suspects of terror and that were to be cleared by any police while driving so
as to pass & that Kitale police station was handling the matter. At
one road block in Kainuk a certain police officer looked at the Piece
of paper & laughed & jokingly said,"Hawa watu ni pesa wanataka
kutoka kwenu. Hapa hakuna kitu. Suspect ya terrorism inakubaliwa
kutembea?
We
got to to lokichar & stayed for a whole week waiting to go back to
kitale again for us to finalize the matter. That Friday we got there
& the next thing we were told was that we were to give them more
time as nothing had happened. This time i couldn't go back to lokichar so
I went to Nairobi as the two Somali guys went back to Lokichar. I had
to first pass by at Egerton Univesity to see my girlfriend (Ruth) who
had been crying all the time over the phone asking me when it is the
whole thing was going to end. I spent the two nights there and calmed
her down with some fine strokes . Upon getting to Nairobi
I remember telling my dad about everything & he became sick.
A
week later He paid my bus ticket to kitale. We got to the police
station in the early morning. The game had started again. being taken
around in
circles ! This time the mother to the Somali guy pulled out her last
card by a simple phone call. It happens that her daughter was married to
a very former senior military guy who then owned a big security
company in Kenya. The call was made & thats when the tables turned . By
the time the phone call was being made it was evening. While at the
police station is when I realized that It is a crime to be poor in this
country. Our lecturer , Solomon Owuoche used to remind us of this and
insisted that we make enough money. Outside the Police office upstairs
as I looked down & could see the holding area. women with kids held
for all manner of crimes. A point of clarification, all this happened
when the late President kibaki was president.
fast forward to the phone call that saved us. The mother to the Somali
guy made the call in the evening.we had spent the whole day at the
police station waiting & were
almost giving up hope. As I sat outside in the benches I saw one
officer dressed in civilian walking with a memo in his hand written
"kitale .. terrorist attack" or something of that sort. I asked my
friend , hawa watu vipi ? That's when My friend Told His mum to make
the call.
It was in the evening the police station was getting quiet apart from a
few cases of petty offenders being brought in at the front area. There
was an English football game that day & everyone was talking about
it. The officer in charge of the station had retreated to a bar to
watch the game. Details of the phone call are so classified I do not
want to mention who it was the military guy called & who in turn
gave the OCS a call while he was out Watching the game at the bar. I
remember Him (the OCS) driving into the police station kinda tipsy &
telling us to follow him to the office where we had been interrogated a
few weeks back. He called the other officers & once they were there
gave an order in front of all of us to be given al our documents back.
His last words were ,*nyinyi ni vijana wadogo endeni muendelee kujenga nchi.
Here is a photo of us In Turkana with My Friend abdi malik. The black prado tx we delivered.
We had visited the ngamia one oil well.
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