Retired KDF boss Julius Karangi reveals boda boda riders wanted to lynch him a month ago

Retired Chief of Defence Forces Gen. Julius Karangi on Friday surprised mourners at a burial in Kirinyaga County when he recounted a recent incident where boda boda operators had threatened to lynch him following an accident involving one of them.

General Karangi disclosed that about a month while driving a boda boda rider hit his vehicle and within moments hundreds of boda boda operators arrived at the scene, hooting and threating to lynch him.

“About a month ago over 500 boda boda riders surrounded me within 30 seconds after one of them hit my vehicle. They were threatening me but they left after I looked at them and lowered my face mask. The crowd was no more. Imagine if it was one of you, you would have been reduced to ashes,” recounted Karangi, urging boda boda riders to stop taking their law into their hands.

He was speaking at the burial of Stephen Mucheru Ngotho who died at the age of 75 after he was killed by a boda boda rider along Kutus-Kagio road.

General Karangi, who is the chairman of the National Social Security fund (NSSF), advised locals and the law enforcers to join hands and help the boda boda riders in improving their livelihoods.

“The point I’m making is that let us all join hands; the authorities, the guardians and talk to these young people that even us we they look for a livelihood let them maintain law and order,” he said.

Central Region Police Commander Patrick Lumumba, who also attended the burial ceremony, warned boda boda operators to obey traffic rules or face consequences.

Lumumba said some riders do not comply with the simple traffic rules, with some operating while under the influence of drugs.

The ceremony was also attended by former Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mwangi Kiunjuri, Othaya Member of Parliament Gichuki Mugambi and former Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinnet.

On Thursday,operations at the Kimbimbi Sub-county Hospital in Mwea were thrown into disarray after 300 boda boda riders stormed the facility, and took away a patient who was getting treated.

The lot then dragged the patient from the hospital and frog marched him 30 kilometres away from the facility before they lynched him.