By Kepta Ombati
Ken Walibora’s tragic death wasn’t an ordinary accident…
Ken left his home in Lavington for town on Friday April 10 morning in one of his cars, a Mercedes Benz.
He parked the car along Kijabe Street and proceeded to Muthurwa/Country bus area by other means; his mode of transport between those two points is unclear at the moment.
Ken had gone to talk to a truck driver who was to transport his construction materials to Western Kenya. And that’s the reason he was in that area that early morning.
He was violently attacked by a gang of unknown people forcing him to flee
It’s in that process of flight that he was knocked down by a speeding matatu while crossing Landhies Road to get out of harm’s way; that was at around 9am
The postmortem report confirms the attack…
A St. John’s ambulance was first on site but for unknown reasons the crew refused to act as first responders; they left him right there wounded…
He was taken to KNH by an NCC ambulance that turned up later; he got to the hospital at about 10am
At KNH he remained unattended/abandoned/neglected until about midnight when he gave up his soul…
Ken’s death was tragic and not unavoidable..
It’s clear that there are issues of insecurity, there are issues of recklessness on our roads, there are issues of dysfunctional public institutions (security and health services) and dereliction of duty,
All driven by a culture of benign neglect and impunity within our institutions
And normalization of dysfunction and cover up… Everyone is in a hurry to move along…
Ken didn’t have to die like he did…
His tragic death raises many question that should be a subject of serious public introspection and discourse…
And indeed an inquest…
Or that should haunt us, until we up from our comfort zones and fix the shit…
Coz today is Ken… tomorrow it might anyone of us…
