Pauline Njoroge finally speaks out on her ordeal after her holiday arrest in Watamu

By Pauline Njoroge

The order to have me arrested was issued last week on Wednesday by the powers that be, and the DCI immediately started tracking me. They finally pounced on Saturday, 22nd July at about 2pm.

On Friday evening, I had received a strange phone call. The caller had identified himself as a person working for a bank.

This person claimed that he had some confidential documents that he wanted to give me in Malindi and asked me to go alone. This startled me because I had not posted anywhere that I was at the Coast. So how did he know? Anyway, I decided to ignore.

Nduta also received a call on Saturday morning from a person who wanted to know whether she does tours in Mombasa. We discussed these things and decided to carry on with our day.

We left the hotel that afternoon to go see Gedi Ruins, Hell’s Kitchen and the first Church in Malindi, which was set up by the Portuguese. When we left the hotel, we found a double cabin vehicle parked outside the resort.

Nduta commented that the occupants had the demeanor of police officers but our driver Emmanuel told us they were probably just neighbours.

We passed the vehicle and proceeded to join the tarmac road. We had hardly gone a kilometre before the very same vehicle blocked us on the road and asked us to follow them to Watamu Police Station.

I was however able to alert my advocate and a core group of friends that we had been picked up by the Police. Once we arrived at the station, they took my phone.

They, however, allowed Nduta to keep hers so long as it was within their sight. The situation, however, changed and even her phone was confiscated. They also took Emmanuel's phone.

They then proceeded to interrogate me and Nduta in separate rooms. Our driver Emmanuel was outside in the vehicle as all this was going on.

The officer questioning Nduta suggested she could leave but she declined and said she would wait for me.

After about two hours, the officers took us back to our hotel to search our rooms. In my room, they found collagen and vitamin C supplements which were in the container I purchased them in. Those were what they labelled psychotropic substances.

They finished the search in my room and we began to to take inventory of the items they had taken, which now included my laptop. As we were doing this, one officer came carrying a roll of bangi and said that she had found it behind the TV.

Nduta and the officer engaged in a back and forth. That was the first time in my life that I was seeing a roll of bangi. My friends can confirm that.

In Nduta's room they took found her multi-vitamins, omega and collagen supplements.

They also took her laptop, all her notebooks and all her reports and a novel she had carried. Her supplements were also labelled psychotropic substances.

When we got back to the police station, they informed us that they would also search the car. Mind you the driver had been in the car throughout this episode so if we had something to hide, by this time he would already have done it.

Interestingly, as soon as the officers started searching, two rolls of bangi appeared out of nowhere on one of the seats.

At that point I told the officers that it was now clear the games they were playing in order to fix us, but since we were helpless in this situation we were going to leave the matter to God in heaven who judges the affairs of men.

It was obvious that they were thinking through what to charge us with, and trying to make anything stick.

Long story short, the three of us were locked up and one of our lawyers who came to the station that night read to us the OB statement which was already in circulation. It indicated that we had been arrested for being in possession of narcotics and psychotropic substances.

Fast forward, on Monday we were up by 5am, ready to be presented to court that morning. But my midday we were still in the cell not knowing what was happening.

Later on, we learnt that those dealing with the matter in Watamu were still not sure what to charge us with or who would appear as the investigating officer, since this was really not their case. The orders were coming from Nairobi.

At around 2pm we finally arrived in the Malindi court. The only document available at the time was an application with 15 counts, but there was no charge sheet.

The prosecutor brought the charge sheet when the court was already in session, therefore it could not be admitted. It is important to note that there was no mention of narcotics on that charge sheet.

Even as per the application, I was supposed to charged for hate speech against the Head of State and hate speech against the State, which is unheard of and cannot apply under our constitution.

Meanwhile in those 15 counts in the application, none of them touched on Nduta and Emmanuel. Zero! In short, the state had detained two innocent Kenyans for two nights and presented them in court, without a single reason.

If this is not madness, I don't know what is. By dragging the two into this smear campaign regarding narcotics, they endangered Nduta's livelihood and caused immense distress to Emmanuel, whose father had just been released from hospital two days earlier, and was in a very delicate situation.

As for me, I still do not know what crime I had committed to warrant my detention. As we speak, my gadgets are with the Cyber Crime unit on Kiambu Road, because the powers that be are desperately still trying to get something to pin on me after their previous attempt failed terribly and exposed their evil scheme.

This is my message to them:

I shall not be silenced! By detaining us, you only strengthened our resolve. We will not sit and watch as some fellows try to turn the clock back, recreating our country's dark past.

Patriots of that generation sacrificed sweat and blood to liberate our country from dictatorship, so that we may have the democratic space we currently enjoy.

Because of our present circumstances, the responsibility to guard jealously our hard-earned freedom has fallen upon our generation. We must bear that responsibility bravely.

To our family, friends and supporters, I say thank you for your overwhelming love and prayers.

To our lawyers, thank you for spending a couple of sleepless nights preparing a strong defence.

To the media, you stood up for the truth. Thank you!

Pauline Njoroge is the Jubilee Party Deputy National Organising Secretary and a renowned Kenyan political blogger