The late Albert Ojwang’….Photo/IP.
NAIROBI — The death of teacher Albert Ojwang in police custody should have been a national wake-up call.
Instead it’s just another chapter in Kenya’s never-ending crime thriller where the ending is always the same: the big fish swim free and the small fish are fried; sometimes literally.
Now, 20 ordinary Kenyans have done something extraordinary.
They’ve sued President William Ruto, top security bosses and the Attorney General accusing them of shielding Deputy Inspector General Eliud Lagat from prosecution.
Lagat is alleged to have been involved in an arrest that ended in Onjwang’s death followed by a police fairy tale about suicide so creative it could win a fiction prize.
Of course, this isn’t a one-off scandal but the system working exactly as designed.
Institutions like the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) and the National Police Service Commission churn out statements, form committees and launch “investigations” that always seem to run out of fuel before reaching the truth.
The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions once a proud guardian of justice now looks more like a guest at the State House dinner table;polite, well-fed, and in no hurry to upset the hosts.
Meanwhile, the law lands like a sledgehammer on the powerless, petty offenders, protesters and jobless youths but transforms into a feather duster for the elite.
The message is clear that in Kenya your rights depend less on the Constitution and more on your LinkedIn connections.
Justice is not meant to be a privilege for the few; it’s the oxygen of democracy. And when that oxygen is cut off, nations suffocate from within.
Unless the machinery of impunity is dismantled with prosecutions that actually touch the top oversight bodies that actually oversee and whistleblowers who don’t disappear , Ojwang’s case will be just another file gathering dust.
The death of one teacher should not be the death of justice.
As things stand Kenya’s reality remains brutally simple; the powerful don’t just escape the law, they are the law.
Ends.
