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Police closing in on pro-Sonko goons who brutalised lobby official


Detectives are closing in on the men who assaulted former Nairobi Central Business District Association chairman Timothy Muriuki at Hotel Boulevard, police have said.

Central Police division boss Robinson Thuku said the Monday incident was reported at the station.

“From camera images, the men have been identified and it’s only a matter of time before we arrest them. We shall also release their names. The investigation is on but we have not arrested the suspects yet,” Mr Thuku said.

The men being sought were captured on camera roughing up Mr Muriuki before they ejected him out of the hotel.

“I reported that I was assaulted and got injured during the incident. One of my aides also recorded a statement,” he told the Nation.

TARNISH SONKO’S NAME

The attackers claimed Mr Muriuki, in the aborted press conference, was about to tarnish Governor Mike Sonko’s name and they could not allow him to address journalists.

They grabbed Mr Muriuki and forcefully led him out of the hotel as he pleaded with them to let him finish reading his statement.

They would hear none of this and at some point in the scuffle, they argued between themselves on whether to throw Mr Muriuki into the hotel’s swimming pool.

Mr Muriuki was thrown out of the hotel premises where other men on motorcycles formed a circle round him and started shoving and beating him.

They even pushed him into a puddle of dirty water on the pavement.

During the scuffle, Mr Muriuki said: “I don’t know why they were harassing me. They must have been briefed that there was a guy who wanted to bash the governor, but as you can see from the statement, I am actually supporting him.”

Part of his statement asked Nairobians to stop blaming the governor for the current problems bedevilling the city as they were not all caused by Mr Sonko.

INHERITED PROBLEMS

Mr Muriuki says in the statement that the current City Hall inherited these problems — including the poor drainage, garbage crisis and high crime rate — from the previous administration.

“Let us separate politics from service delivery and let us give Governor Sonko a chance to deploy his delivery team — part of which was sworn-in hardly a fortnight ago. Even as we demand that the governor plays his part in making Nairobi better, let us bear in mind that Nairobi — which was the ultimate theatre of the dreadful political pandemonium of 2017 politics — was literally ungovernable until the beginning of 2018,” the statement said.

The NCBDA suggests that solutions can be found if the city’s professionals work together with the governor and streamline the service delivery of utilities such as garbage collection, within the city.