‘Diaspora’ Residents Storm Thika Police Station To Demand The Release Of Colleague.
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| Thika residents celebrating the release of Michael Orao (centre with brown flowered shirt) outside Thika Police Station. Orao spent seven hours in police custody on allegations of voter buying. |
Thika police over the weekend found themselves on unfamiliar
territory as a section of Thika residents stormed the station demanding release
of their colleague who had been arrested on Saturday for allegedly voter buying.
The close to 100 residents, all of whom are ‘immigrants’ from
other counties, accused the police of being incited by a particular politician
in the area to arrange the arrest.
Early Saturday morning, a chief in a neighbouring location and
his sub-chief, accompanied by two armed administration police officers, stormed
Michael Orao’s work place in Majengo Estate Thika accusing him of buying votes from
residents of a particular ethnic community in Makongeni area with intent of influencing
them to support another aspirant.
“At around 8:30 am this morning, four people came to my work
place and demanded to do a search on my premises and later my house. They found
nothing to incriminate me. Nonetheless, they arrested me and took me to Thika
Police Station. Upon arrival, the police accused me of buying out the votes
from people purporting to be supporting one of Thika Town MP candidates and
selling it to the opponent,” explained Orao upon release.
Immediately, he was booked and put into the police cells.
Reports of his arrest spread like bush fire and within a
short time, his relatives and colleagues flocked the station demanding an
explanation as to why Orao was in custody. It took the intervention of several
other politicians who secured his release, about seven hours later.
Orao is now out on a police bond of Ksh. 10,000 and is
supposed to report back to the station on Tuesday the 21st of
February 2017.
Meanwhile, investigations are still on-going to ascertain the
truth of this matter.
Angry residents who came to secure his release connected
Orao’s arrest to the race for the Thika Town Parliamentary Seat. They expressed
their disappointment in the manner that they were being targeted for not originally
being natives of this region.
“As Thika residents from the diaspora, we feel that we are intimidated
threatened by this politician especially in Makongeni where we cannot even do
business in peace. Our only crime is supporting the opponent. We want to tell
all politicians that we reside in Thika by right and we are here to stay. As Kenyans,
we have a constitutional right to vote for whoever we want regardless of where
we are,” said Brinton Kimeo.
They vowed to rally all the ‘diaspora’ residents to speak in
one voice and chart their way forward for the party primaries as well as the August
2017 General Elections.
“We have scheduled a meeting for all the diaspora residents
next Sunday at the Kenyatta Primary School grounds at 2:00pm where we are going
to decide on who to support as our candidate for the Thika parliamentary seat
during the Jubilee nominations. We are going to vote as a block regardless of
which part of Kenya one comes from,” said Kimeo, who incidentally is vying for
the Kamenu Ward MCA seat.
Another resident threatened to mobilise his people to start
a door-to-door campaign to ensure the said politician did not clinch the
Jubilee Party nominations in March.
“We cannot entertain this at all. We are not lesser beings
for not being born from this region. I will personally mobilise my people to
make sure these people do not clinch the Jubilee nominations,” chided this
irate resident.
Efforts to get a comment from the police or the chief were
fruitless as our calls were unanswered.
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