Mr Ndegwa Muhoro arrives at Kasarani on December 12 for Jamhuri Day celebrations. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP
Summary
- Among security circles, his unexpected discharge by President Uhuru Kenyatta on Friday was received with relief.
- After three years in office in 2013, Mr Muhoro faced an early exit after new laws were effected that required a higher degree of vetting for personalities who would head reformed police units.
- His appointment catapulted him to the nerve centre of security operations in Kenya.
- The detailed report by Ipoa claimed Mr Muhoro influenced the transfer of three senior police officers unjustifiably, since they were investigating a matter involving one of his friends.
Mr Francis Ndegwa Muhoro finally left the Directorate of Criminal Investigations after a controversial tenure spanning seven years.
He preferred to be called Frank, not Francis.
Among security circles, his unexpected discharge by President Uhuru Kenyatta on Friday was received with relief but, of course, a few beneficiaries of his tenure are unhappy.
How he survived the years as Kenya’s senior-most detective is worth a study because his woes set in even before he was appointed to take charge of the office of Director, in the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.
After three years in office in 2013, Mr Muhoro faced an early exit after new laws were effected that required a higher degree of vetting for personalities who would head reformed police units.
Then Prime Minister Raila Odinga, Amnesty International and the Independent Policing and Oversight Authority (Ipoa) separately opposed Mr Muhoro’s appointment on a new six-year term in 2013.
But former President Kibaki held the last word and, finally, Mr Muhoro sailed through.
PLUM POSITION
He was appointed to the plum position on the eve of the promulgation of the Constitution on August 26, 2010.
It was seen as a tactical move to avoid the rigorous appointment process that was to take course under the Constitution, stripping the President of powers and bestowing them on the yet to be established
Then powerful Internal Security Permanent Secretary Francis Kimemia played a big role in the appointment.
Before that, after years of teaching at Kenya Police College, Mr Muhoro had been promoted from a senior superintendent of police to assistant commissioner of police and placed as the commandant of the police academy in Loresho, Nairobi, a low key institution.
His appointment catapulted him to the nerve centre of security operations in Kenya.
TRANSFER
Nevertheless, the detailed report by Ipoa claimed Mr Muhoro influenced the transfer of three senior police officers unjustifiably, since they were investigating a matter involving one of his friends.
In this case, the complainant was Ms Jane Wanjiru Iriga who claimed DCI Muhoro influenced the chief examiner of documents at the Criminal Investigations Department, as the Directorate was known at the time, to change his facts to his preference. The friend was identified as Mr Fredrick Kirubi.
The case involved a tussle over a piece of land.
In the land saga, Ms Wanjiru accused Mr Muhoro of using his position to influence the CID document examiner, then assistant commissioner of Police Emmanuel Kenga, to change his report which had shown that she (Ms Iriga) had not forged share transfer forms of a 400-acre coffee estate in Makuyu which was the subject of a family dispute pitting her against her step-daughter, Ms Ann Wambui Iriga.
Ms Wanjiru claimed that Mr Muhoro was interfering with the investigations because he was a friend of Mr Kirubi’s, Ms Wambui’s boyfriend.
TATU CITY SAGA
Mr Muhoro’s name featured in allegations by prominent lawyer Ahmednasir Abdullahi, over involvement in the Tatu city saga.
And when the National Youth Service (NYS) scandal broke out, then Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru raised eyebrows after writing to Mr Muhoro, and not the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, to take up the investigations.
Findings of the investigation were handed to Ms Waiguru though ordinarily such reports should be submitted to the Director of Public Prosecutions Keriako Tobiko.
President Kenyatta announced on Friday that he had accepted Mr Tobiko’s resignation and nominated him for a cabinet secretary position ahead of approval by Parliament.
Further queries followed and it emerged that fraud detectives under Mr Muhoro were adversely mentioned in allegedly taking bribes, amounting to millions of shillings, from some beneficiaries of the NYS scandal.
NYS SCANDAL
Under the same ministry but at the Youth Enterprise Development Fund (YEDF), the embattled board chairman Bruce Odhiambo also approached Mr Muhoro to investigate the alleged loss of Sh180 million paid to Quarandum Ltd for non-existent ICT consultancy works.
In the Tatu City matter, Mr Muhoro was accused of deliberately commissioning two investigations into the project which resulted in two different files being sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions with conflicting recommendations.
Under Mr Muhoro’s leadership, Kenyans remained in the dark regarding the murder of former Kabete MP George Muchai and controversial whistle blower Jacob Juma. And, most recently, the killing of Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission Information Communication Technology manager Chris Msando. Some suspects were arrested and taken to court but the execution is yet to become clear.
The IEBC ICT boss was killed just days to the August 8 General Election.
Once in a position of power, Mr Muhoro was also not shy to fight for his place in the police hierarchy. Although the DCI, according to the law, does not sit in NPSC, Mr Muhoro was always present in what was officially communicated as “on invitation.”
SUPREMACY BATTLE
At one time, a supremacy battle between him and former Deputy Inspector-General of Kenya Police, Ms Grace Kaindi, threatened to cripple the work of criminal investigators.
Mr Muhoro had taken an initiative to train a large number of police officers from other uniformed police units to become detectives but Ms Kaindi refused to release them to the DCI.
Ms Kaindi, in fighting Mr Muhoro, had vowed never to accept that the DCI falls under her docket as things stood before the 2010 Constitution. Before then, the police was headed by a commissioner and the Director of Criminal Investigations was one of the commissioner’s deputies.
There is also the issue of televangelist James Ng’ang’a who was arrested for causing death by reckless driving.
An audit that followed the road crash showed that Inspector-General of Police Joseph Boinnet was “initially duped into supporting a cover-up.”
It further showed the cover-up involved senior detectives at DCI.
BUNGLED INVESTIGATIONS
The report also showed the pastor, before Mr Boinnet’s intervention, was illegally escorted by senior police officers during his trips outside Nairobi.
Under Mr Muhoro, the DCI has been discredited for bungled investigations, collusion with suspects and suspicious disappearances and murders.
He replaced Mr Simon Gatiba Karanja who died in May 2010 at his home in Thika.
In the Tatu City scandal, the DCI was accused of protecting and sharing investigation files with former Central Bank of Kenya Governor Nahashon Nyagah and industrialist Vimal Shah.
Mr Nyagah and Mr Shah fought over the multi-billion-shilling Tatu City scandal in which they are accused of attempting to grab the investment from Mr Stephen Jennings, the principal investor.
KOINANGE FARM DISPUTE
In court, lawyer Abdullahi said his client, Mr Jennings, made a complaint to the CID on August 3 against Mr Nyagah and, after investigations, Inspector Ezekiel Masaka recommended that a number of people be charged.
But before the file was forwarded to the Director of Public Prosecutions, Mr Abdullahi claimed, the CID boss confiscated it. Besides being mentioned adversely in the tussle for the Tatu City project, Mr Muhoro’s name also came up in 2015 in the Koinange farm dispute.
One of the women stripped of the right to administer the property of the late Mbiyu Koinange, Ms Eddah Wanjiru Mbiyu, asked Ipoa to investigate Mr Muhoro for allegedly protecting lawyers whom she claimed were siphoning money from the deceased’s estate.
Koinange’s widow had accused the lawyers of forging a court order, which they allegedly used to withdraw Sh284 million from the estate’s account without the knowledge of the administrators.
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