Ndiis wife recounts husbands arrest as daughter, 11, watched

Economist David Ndii, who is also the National Super Alliance chief strategist, was arrested on Sunday as he went for dinner together with his 11-year-old daughter, according to his wife Mwende Gatabaki.

Recounting the arrest that caught many by surprise, Mrs. Ndii said seven security officers, who were in two vehicles arrived at Leopard Beach Hotel in Kwale at around 8.30pm and parked outside.

While heading to the dining area, Mrs. Ndii, who had been left in the hotel room, says her husband spotted the two vehicles he thought looked suspicious and as he observed them, two officers came out and approached him requesting to have a word.

“Then two of them came out of the car, greeted them and told my husband ‘aren’t you David Ndii?’ He said yes and they said they want to speak to him,” said Mrs. Ndii. “They moved to the reception area, where they were joined by five other officers two of whom were armed.”

The panic-stricken daughter rushed back to the room to inform her mother, who rushed to the reception area where she says, the seven officers had surrounded her husband.

“‘Mum the police are here and they are taking Dad away’,” Mrs. Ndii recounts her daughter’s message. “I quickly got my phone and ran to the reception area and my husband asked to use my phone. One officer, who was head of the team tried to push me away, I told them ‘you are seven men, two of you have guns. I’m a woman surely what can I do to you’. In the process he (Ndii) was making the calls. One officer then grabbed him and said now we have to go.”

She hopped on a taxi and followed the police vehicles, but upon reaching Diani Police Station, the officers at the station said her husband had not been booked there.

The officers then demanded to search their room and even though they did not have a search warrant, she complied but the search came to naught.

“They got the hotel manager to open the door. They told me to take out the clothes in the suitcase. I told them: ‘No you are the ones searching you do that’. I had unpacked my suitcase so they could see those are ladies clothes, my under wears… I said there is no way I’m going to show seven men my under wears,” said Mrs. Ndii.

“When they looked and could not find anything, the man who looked like their leader called one of the officers. They went outside and after a short while they came back and asked me: ‘Where are the computers?’ I said: ‘Which computers?’ I told them we left them in Nairobi. After that, they said we go back to the police station.”

They all went back to Diani Police Station to record a statement on the search but the officers still did not disclose her husband’s whereabouts.

Even as police remain tight-lipped on Ndii’s arrest, NASA leaders including Siaya Senator James Orengo, NASA CEO Norman Magaya, Lawyer Edwin Sifuna on Monday trooped to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) headquarters in Nairobi where Mr. Ndii is believed to have been transferred for further interrogation.

The NASA leaders were allowed into the DCI headquarters after being denied access briefly. However, they are yet to issue a statement on the matter.