Presidential candidate Fred Matiangi arrived in Nairobi on June 19, 2025 to a big reception organized by his Jubilee sponsors and he repeated his call to be the next president of Kenya amid all the turmoil in the country.
Fred Matiangi has a fair support base in the country and he has joined the calls to end abductions and human rights abuses in the country. That is a good thing to talk about.
When Matiangi talks about ending human rights abuses as part of his agenda someone need to remind him that history is a very stubborn thing because it never goes away and we can now look at Fred Matiangi’s record as the Interior CS under Uhuru Kenyatta who is the one sponsoring him today and Kenyans have to ask if both of them dearly miss what they were doing to Kenyans then and are in a hurry to get back to that business
Mataingi’s cruelty to Kenyans as Interior CS was phenomenon and made him close to the Idi Amin of our times in the way he treated Kenyan citizens whom he thought did not support his boss, President Uhuru Kenyatta and all that was well covered in the Kenyan media and below is one such example.
LSK now wants Matiangi, Kibicho and Mutyambai fired over extrajudicial killings
NAIROBI, Kenya Nov 9 – The Law Society of Kenya (LSK) is now calling for a total overhaul of the top leadership in the Ministry of Interior and Coordination of National Government over increased cases of extrajudicial killings and abductions.
LSK specifically want Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiangi, his Principal Secretary Karanja Kibicho and Inspector General of Police Hillary Mutyambai shown the door, accusing them of being perpetrators of the illegalities.
Led by the council representative Bernard Ngetich, LSK said the rot in the ministry emanates from the top leadership as the cases of enforced disappearances have escalated during their tenure.
“Our junior officers are not bad; the culpable people are the top leadership led by CS Matiangi and we would like to tell President Uhuru Kenyatta as he prepares to exit office that he looks into and changes the leadership in security agencies. Let’s have people who respect the law and human rights as well as diverse religious belief,” said Ngetich.
Amnesty International said in 2020 that more than 740 Kenyans were killed by police since 2007, including at least 130 in 2020.
LSK has issued an ultimatum of 30 days to President Uhuru Kenyatta to sack the top security chiefs.
“As lawyers, if we will not see changes in the next 30 days we will go to court and file a suit suing President Uhuru Kenyatta, the Attorney General Kihara Kariuki. We hope the court will rule that Matiangi, Kibicho and Mutyambai have no moral authority to lead Interior docket which is key in the country,” said Ngetich.
LSK Chief Executive Officer Mercy Wambua said they will not relent in their quest for justice.
According to LSK, the demonstrations under the “Purple Ribbon Campaign Week” are meant to speak against extrajudicial killings and disappearances.
More tellingly is what Matiangi did after the Uhuru rigged elections of August 2017 after the results were declared and Kenyans refused to accept the political theft and took to the streets to protest and demand fresh elections. Following Matiangi’s order Kenya police opened fire on any demonstrator in the streets of Nairobi. Kenyans were at another disaster like the 2007/8 post election violence and Matiangi was ready and working to deliver that for the rigged in Uhuru Kenyatta.
Here are some of other the media reports at the time. Quite frightening indeed.
Kenya: Post-election unrest leaves at least eleven people dead.
August Saturday 12 August 2017
Kenyan police have killed at least 11 people in a crackdown on protests, as anger over the re-election of President Uhuru Kenyatta erupted, officials have said.
However, the NASA opposition coalition, led by four-time presidential hopeful Raila Odinga, put the death toll at more than 100, including 10 children.
Governments denies accusations of police brutality
The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights said 24 people had been shot dead by police since Tuesday, election day.
Top Odinga lieutenant Johnson Muthama said police had been packing corpses into body bags and dumping them, remarks likely to exacerbate the tensions that followed the official announcement that Mr Kenyatta had won, with 54.3 per cent of votes.
The media reports also tell us how Matiangi took the violence and killing of Kenyans in August 2017 to a new level when he deliberately invaded peoples homes and living places starting with the crowded Mathare in Nairobi and it was horrific.
Kenya: Police Killed, Beat Post-Election Protesters
(Nairobi) – Kenyan police killed at least 33 people, possibly as many as 50, and injured hundreds more in some parts of Nairobi, the capital, in response to protests following the August 8, 2017 elections, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said in a joint report.
Residents flee as anti-riot policemen pursue opposition protestors in Mathare, Nairobi, on August 12. © 2017.
Some victims died of asphyxiation from inhaling teargas and pepper spray, from being hit by teargas canisters fired at close range, or from being trampled to death by fleeing crowds.
Police were directly implicated in the deaths of at least 33 people, researchers found. Another 17 were alleged killed, most of them in Kawangware.
“Dozens of people were killed and many more left with life-altering injuries in attacks by the police against opposition supporters,” said Michelle Kagari, deputy regional director for East Africa, the Horn, and the Great Lakes at Amnesty International. “This deadly use of excessive force has become a hallmark of police operations in Kenya”
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch researchers interviewed 151 victims, witnesses, human rights activists, aid workers, and police in Nairobi’s low-income areas known to be strongholds of opposition supporters. Ahead of the vote, police had designated many of these areas as “hot spots” for potential violence and had deployed forces heavily, increasing tensions.
A woman reacts near the dead body of a protester in Mathare, in Nairobi, Kenya August 9, 2017.
In the days after the poll, opposition supporters took to the streets in areas of the capital to protest irregularities in the election, in which the incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta was declared the winner. On September 1, the Supreme Court nullified the results and ordered a new election within 60 days. It is scheduled for October 26, but opposition candidate Raila Odinga’s withdrawal on October 10 created uncertainty over the revote.
Researchers found that armed police – most of them from the General Service Unit (GSU) and Administration Police (AP) – carried out law enforcement operations in Mathare, Kibera, Babadogo, Dandora, Korogocho, Kariobangi, and Kawangware neighborhoods in Nairobi between August 9 and 13. They shot directly at some protesters and also opened fire, apparently randomly, on crowds. Victims and witnesses told researchers that as protesters ran away, police pursued them, kicking down doors and chasing people down alleyways, shooting and beating many to death.
In one case, a 9-year-old girl, Stephanie Moraa Nyarangi, was shot dead while standing on the balcony of her family’s apartment. Smeared blood and a pockmark in the wall show where she was standing. She died almost immediately. Her parents threaded their way through the chaos to take her body to the mortuary. “She was an innocent child,” said Dennis Ojolo, 30, the dead girl’s uncle.
In another, Jeremiah Maranga, a 50-year-old security guard, was beaten so badly by police that his body was soaked in blood. He later died. In another incident, Lilian Khavere, a housekeeper who was eight months pregnant, was trampled to death by a fleeing crowd after she fainted from inhaling teargas.
Protesters attempt to make peace with policemen.
Acting Interior Minister Fred Matiang’i had earlier said trouble was localized and blamed it on “criminal elements” rather than legitimate political protest.
He also denied accusations of police brutality.
“Let us be honest — there are no demonstrations happening,” he said.
“Individuals or gangs that are looting shops, that want to endanger lives, that are breaking into people’s businesses, those are not demonstrators.
“They are criminals and we expect police to deal with criminals how criminals should be dealt with.”
Nine young men were shot dead in Mathare on Friday night and Saturday in “anti-looting operations”, according to a security official quoted by Reuters news agency, and 30 people from the slum are reported by NGOs to have been injured.
“They are criminals, and you must expect the police to deal with them in the way that criminals are dealt with. You have a right to express your frustration. You have a right to express your opinion … but do not damage people’s property, break into people’s homes [and] do not hurt your fellow Kenyans,” Fred Matiang’i said.
That is the Fred Matiangi Kenyans know who now wants to be the next president of our country so he treat every Kenyan who oppose him as criminals because that was his motto during the 2017 protests against Kenyans who challenged rigged elections by Uhuru Kenyatta his boss. Imagine he is the full boss at State House then Kenyans who oppose him will all be criminals in the country deserving bullets in their chests.
But the defining action by Matiangi was the brutal and obscene violence committed by his boys when they murdered a six year old little kid by the name Samantha Pendo in her family home in Kisumu by throwing teargas at the kid and then beating her on the head when her mother came out holding her. Kenyans call her Baby Pendo because of their love for her and support for her family.
Eighteen years later in 2025, Joseph Oloo Abanja and Lensa Achieng are still raw with emotion as the case against the alleged officers involved is not going anywhere..
“It is a scar that will never fade away,” Ms Achieng, a hotel worker, told the BBC about the death of six-month-old Samantha Pendo who died with a broken skull and of internal bleeding.
Samantha Pendo’s parents are desperate for the case against the police officers to be dealt with.
According to BBC reports their small home was along a road in the Nyalenda informal settlement that witnessed protests on 11 August where anti-riot police were deployed.
That night the couple locked their wooden door and barricaded it with furniture. At around midnight, they heard their neighbours’ doors being broken down and some of the occupants being beaten.
It was not long before police officers arrived at their door.
“They knocked and kicked it several times [but] I refused to open,” Mr Abanja tells the BBC, adding that he pleaded with them to spare his family of four.
But the battering continued until the officers found a small space through which they threw a tear-gas canister into the one-roomed house, forcing the family out.
Mr Abanja says he was ordered to lie down outside the door and then the beating started.
“They were going for my head so I held my hands up, and they beat my hands until they could not hold any more.”
His wife came out of the house holding Samantha, who was having difficulty breathing because of the tear gas, and was not spared either.
“They went ahead beating me [with clubs] while I was holding my daughter,” Ms Achieng says.
The next thing she felt was her daughter holding her tight “as if she was in pain”.
“I turned her and what was coming outside her mouth? It was foam.”
She shouted that they had killed her daughter and it was at that moment the beatings stopped and Mr Abanja was ordered to administer first aid.
The baby came to but was badly injured.
The couple say officers then swiftly left and neighbours helped them rush Samantha to hospital. She died after three days in intensive care.
Twelve police officers have been expected to be charged with murder, rape and torture.
Mr Otieno says the victims’ lawyers may consider seeking justice via a private prosecution or going to the East African Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court (ICC) if the delays continue.
“It doesn’t matter how I’ll do it, but I’ll make sure that I have justice,” says Mr Abanja, who makes a living as a tuk-tuk taxi driver.
“Because they took away something that is so much precious of me – she was everything to me, that little girl I named after my mum.”
Today after 18 years the case is back in court and will probably be delayed more and more and God forbid Fred Matiangi’s becomes the president that case will be thrown out of court forever
High Court to rule on bail for officers in Baby Pendo case on June 16
Some of the police officers before Milimani Law court during the hearing of the Baby Pendo murder case on May 5, 2025. (Photo: Carolyne Kubwa)
Tuesday, June 10, 2025
Prosecutors maintained that the serving commanders, being prosecuted under the unprecedented principle of command responsibility for events leading to the infant’s death, would not interfere with witness testimony despite the serious charges.
During Tuesday’s hearing, neither the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) nor the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) opposed bail for the accused. However, IPOA urged the court to impose strict conditions to ensure the officers’ attendance at all court proceedings.
Prosecutors maintained that the serving commanders, being prosecuted under the unprecedented principle of command responsibility for events leading to the infant’s death, would not interfere with witness testimony despite the serious charges.
Willis Otieno, representing Baby Pendo’s family, strongly opposed bail, emphasising the case’s exceptional gravity and sensitivity. He argued these factors warranted denying the officers’ release.
The terrible thing here is that the Matiangi police officers who murdered that young child are still working in the police force today and have never faced a full hearing in the Kenyan courts.
ADVICE FOR FRED MATIANGI
As a Kenyan I am ready to offer what I consider to be a great advice to Fred Matiangi in his presidential bid and it could work very well for him. He should pay me for this. In Kenyan elections every presidential candidate needs a sign whether it is orange, watermelon or giraffe.
In your case, Dr. Matiangi I have a great idea. Put the picture of Baby Pendo on your campaign T-Shirt and in front put this picture very prominently so everyone can see it.
At the back put the other picture of her when she was okay in the house. With that picture in front of your T-Shirt when you go around looking very serious and ready to run and ruin the country you will tell the voters as they see that dying kid you tell them:
“Here I am and you do what I say and be ready to vote for me otherwise I will Baby Pendo You”. You say that as you point to the picture in front of your T- Shirt.
Scared voters will say just show me the ballot box and you are in. End of story and you will the next president of the republic of Kenya. Now I am waiting for my payment from you for my excellent advice. Good Luck.
