Nairobi News

Police at Kilimani station are on the spot after arresting and detaining gospel artist Eko Dydda for allegedly violating the dusk to dawn curfew.

Nairobi News has learnt that Eko Dydda was pounced on by officers after 7pm when the curfew starts as he rushed home after buying medicine for his ailing wife.

A statement seen by this reporter indicated that Dydda was forced to leave his residential estate house to rush and purchase medicine for Sylvia Ayugi.

According to the statement, police arrested the singer at Coptic Hospital on Ngong road at 7:10pm, bundled him into their car and took him to Kilimani Police Station.

Sylvia reportedly suffers from high blood pressure which led to facial palsy and other complications that have adversely affected her health.

She said, in the record, that on the fateful day her husband had looked in their neigbourhood for the medicine she normally uses unsuccefully forcing him to rush to the CBD.

“He went to a pharmacy near our neighborhood, in the late afternoon, but he couldn’t find the medication. He then decided to drive to Nairobi CBD where he found and bought the medication,” she told Nairobi News.

Dydda was arrested after he reportedly repaired a puncture he got at around 6:30pm and the police also towed his vehicle to the station and booked him in.

Sylvia said she was later called to Kilimani where her husband and a neighbour were being held but she was kicked out and allegedly told to return with Sh10,000.

She narrated that after a back and forth and parting with the cash he husband was released but not before she was threatened for recordig the officer with her phone.

They were told to return to the station minutes after release as the cops told Dydda they needed him to record a statement on a man who reportedly died in a cell.

However, when they returned to the station the next day at half past noon Dydda was instead re-arrested and thrown into a cell under an unclear circumstance.

The officers reportedly handed back the cash Sylvia had given them and allegedly vowed to teach him a lesson for recording their ordeal in the hands of the police.

It is then that the artiste was thrown into quarantine at the Kenya Medical Training College (KMTC) in Mbagathi with 200 others and he is set to be tested for Covid-19.

Dydda and Sylvia claim they have been threatened with harsher punishment for their family she dares share the video she recorded of the police at the station.

But in a rejoinder, police spokesperson Charles Owino called for responsible policing from police officers during this period of the pandemic.

“I encourage the officers to use their common sense. When you are confronted by a citizen claiming to have gone out in search of medication, verify the receipt, that is why pharmacies are open late. But some officers can be very very unreasonable,” Owino said.

He has asked those who feel aggrieved by police actions to file official reports.

“We take every compaint very seriously,” he added.