Two directors of the trouble-ridden Kihiu Mwiri land buying company were killed in cold blood yesterday, compounding the tragic mystery of the company that has lost six other directors to murders in the recent past.
A police report said the two directors of Kihiu Mwiri Farmers Company Ltd, Josephat Kibe, 50, and Zachariah Chege, 47, were riding on a motorbike near Kabati, Murang’a county, when they were confronted by two men riding another motorbike at 7.30am.
Police said one of the two people on the other motorcycle drew a gun and shot the two several times, killing them instantly, in the full glare of many school children who were on their way to school. Murang’a Regional Administration Police boss Josephta Kinyua and area assistant deputy county commissioner Joel Cherop confirmed the killings. The report said the attackers fled to after incident.
“Five empty 9-mm cartridges were recovered from the murder scene,” the police report said. Their bodies were taken to Bishop Okoye mortuary in Thika town. “When they got near P.K. Primary School, the riders on the other motorbike tried to overtake them and the person on the passenger’s seat sprayed them with bullets, killing them on the spot,” said Cherop.
He said some of the pupils who had witnessed the shooting were left traumatised, adding that investigations are underway. Cherop said police suspect the killings are related to persistent leadership wrangles pitting different factions that claim leadership of the land-buying firm.
Over the past two years, six directors have been killed in mysterious circumstances. Four other directors have disappeared without trace. Some relatives of the directors have also been abducted at various points and later dumped in attacks aimed at eliminating officials of the 6200-member company. Company chairman, Paul Kariuki, disappeared last month after leaving his office in Thika town.
The burnt shell of his car was later found in Limuru but his whereabouts remain unknown. On May 10, the company’s vice-chairman, Peter Kuria, was shot dead at his home in Grey Stone area at around 7pm.
Nothing was stolen from him. Three days before Kariuki’s abduction, Paul Kaharu, another director, was shot dead as he was getting into his car at Majengo Estate in Thika. He had stopped to meet a friend while on his way home when the assailants, who were on a boda boda, shot at him six times.
Other directors who have also been shot dead include Wilfred Gichana, who was killed in January this year by a gang in his home, Charles Kamau, a director, who was also killed by a gang at his home, and Ibrahim Mwangi, who was killed by a gang that forced its way into his home at the Kihiu Mwiri farm.
The calculated executions started with the killing of Benson Gumbi in 2001 after he was waylaid by a gang in a coffee plantation on his way to a company meeting. The company has since been embroiled in leadership wrangles for over two decades.
Officials’ meetings with Murang’a Governor Mwangi wa Iria, County Commissioner as well as Senator Kembi Gitura and Women’s Representative Sabina Chege have not borne peace.
During a recent tour of the region, Deputy President William Ruto ordered Lands Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i to have title deeds of the company members released by September as a permanent solution to the killings.
The land whose acreage is estimated to be 1,085. Three weeks ago, the office belonging to the company in Kihiu Mwiri was closed down after allegations that it was being used for illegal activities where some directors were using it to recruit new members.
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