A bodyguard attached to Laikipia Governor Joshua Irungu has died by suicide inside a rental house in Nanyuki town.
The police officer, who has worked with the governor since assuming office in September 2022, shot himself through the mouth on Wednesday afternoon with the bullet exiting through the back of the head.
Laikipia East police boss John Tarus confirmed the 3pm incident but said he was yet to get the fine details of what exactly transpired.
“It is true the governor’s bodyguard has died after shooting himself through the mouth. He did not leave a suicide note and the body has been taken to the Nanyuki Teaching and Referral Hospital mortuary,” said Mr Tarus on phone.
The officer lived alone at Blue Gum Estate but has a wife and a three-month-old baby back at his rural home in Nyanza.
He is reported to have taken a boda boda ride from Nanyuki town to his home, about three kilometres away. He had instructed the rider to wait for him so that they could go back to town together, only to hear the sound of a gunshot, prompting him to report the incident at a local police station.
The deceased’s last official assignment was last Monday when the president’s advisor on women rights and gender Harriet Chigai and officials from Habitat for Human Kenya paid a courtesy call on the governor in his office ahead of commissioning of a low-cost housing project in Naibor village in honour of the late US President Jimmy Carter.
His workmates at the governor’s office said they were with him on Monday evening at a hotel where he looked jovial and displayed no signs of disturbance.
