A vehicle driven by lawyer Kyalo Mbobu, after he was shot in Karen, is parked in the Nairobi Area on September 10, 2025.
In court, lawyer Kyalo Mbobu built his litigation career on precedent. Outside it, precedent may have contributed to his murder in cold blood.
Two assassins on a motorcycle may have exploited Mr Mbobu’s rigid routine in accomplishing their heinous mission.
Mr Mbobu always arrived at his office on the eighth floor of Town House a few minutes before 6 am. After a little planning and housekeeping, the lawyer would leave at 7am and arrive at the Holy Family Basilica 15 minutes later, in time to celebrate Holy Mass.
The Mass typically lasts half an hour, and by 8am Mr Mbobu was always back to his office.
Nothing was unusual about Mr Mbobu’s movements on September 9.
Usually, he would order for lunch, which one of his support staff would diligently deliver to Mr Mbobu’s desk at 1 pm.
On the fateful day, he had several meetings in the afternoon and had lunch elsewhere. That was the only change in his schedule.
Lawyer Kyalo Mbobu in court.
“Counsel did not eat lunch in the office on September 9. He went out for a meeting then came back after 2pm. He stayed in the office until 4.30pm when he left the office for the day. He bid us goodbye and then left for the day,” a receptionist at Mr Mbobu’s office said.
Like clockwork, the lawyer left his office at 4.30 pm. He usually drove to his Karen home through Langata Road.
Mr Mbobu’s routine, usual route and the government’s plan to ease traffic by dualling the 20km Magadi Road could have played right into the killer’s plans.
The ambush site chosen by the killers has few signs of life and no CCTV coverage, narrowing the chances of being identified.
They attacked Mr Mbobu past Galleria Mall and Brookhouse School minutes after 6.30 pm, at a section where overgrown vegetation covers both sides of Magadi road. There are no buildings or businesses in sight.
Only the sun shines light in the area, hence it is poorly lit from dusk till dawn. Many of the streetlights along Magadi Road are faulty, having been vandalised by criminals.
The spot chosen by the killers is a few metres from a sharp bend. Owing to ongoing road construction, drivers must slow down to navigate the sharp bend and give way to vehicles approaching from the Ongata Rongai direction.
Heavy traffic forces drivers to at times completely stop when nearing that spot.
The killers shot Mr Mbobu multiple times before fleeing.
Share information
On Wednesday, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) appealed to members of the public to share any information they may have on the incident, and which could aid in its probe.
Vehicles on Magadi Road in Nairobi on September 10,2025, near the spot where lawyer Kyalo Mbobu was shot dead while driving on September 9, 2025.
“The DCI is committed to ensuring that the perpetrators of this heinous act are brought to justice. Our investigators are working diligently, employing all available resources and expertise to piece together the events surrounding this incident,” DCI head Mohamed Amin said in a statement.
The DCI Homicide Bureau visited the scene on Wednesday with their colleagues from the National Forensic Laboratory to collect evidence as other officers started looking into various aspects of Mr Mbobu’s life to determine if anyone had a motive to kill the man who had practised law for 48 years.
Staring at the staircase where Kyalo would walk through every morning before 6 am, the receptionist at the front office told the Daily Nation “we are at a loss. We are badly hit by the news of the untimely demise of our boss.”
“We are not allowed to talk about the death of our boss. His family is the one which can talk about him. We are equally waiting to get a word from the family,” the receptionist and a lawyer who works at Kyalo & Associates said.
The grief stricken receptionist said that the entire office is greatly perturbed by Mr Mbobu’s sudden death.
In Maiani, Makueni County, Mr Mbobu’s family is shocked by the cruel development.
His brother, James Maluki, rushed to Maiani, Makueni County, early morning on Wednesday to condole with their mother at their rural home.
“I spoke to him in the course of the day on September 9 and said he was okay only to learn from the media reports that he has been shot… It is too early to comment about the death of Kyalo. Police are still handling the incident. Let us wait for the outcome of investigations,” he said.
Lawyer Philip Murgor. Photo/STEPHEN MUDIARI
The Senior Counsel Bar (SCB) chairperson, Philip Murgor, expressed shock and outrage following the brutal murder of Mr Kyalo Mbobu, whom he described as “a distinguished and senior advocate of the High Court of Kenya.”
“The murder appears to have been executed by a person well-trained in the use of firearms. As stated by the Law Society of Kenya, this tragic incident marks another sad day for the legal profession and for the entire country. Therefore, the SCB joins the LSK in mourning a distinguished member of the legal profession,” Mr Murgor said in a statement.
“in addition, Mr Mbobu will be remembered for his contribution in shaping the careers of several generations of lawyers, as a lecturer at the University of Nairobi and through his scholarly publications,” the statement read further.
Mr Murgor also noted that Mr Mbobu was gunned down the day social media posts on a 33-year-old case went viral.
The social media post Mr Murgor was referring to was an accusation by one of Mr Mbobu’s longest-serving clients, Kung’u Muigai.
Kung’u Muigai.
Mr Mbobu represented Mr Muigai, a cousin of former President Uhuru Kenyatta, in multiple unsuccessful cases that spent 33 years in the courts, seeking to block KCB Bank from auctioning a 443-acre coffee farm in Juja.
KCB in 1989 extended a loan to Mr Muigai’s Benjoh Amalgamated for the setting up of a flower farm in Nyandarua.
His brother, Ngengi Muigai, owns Muiri Coffee Estates Ltd, which was listed as a guarantor for the loan, and pledged the coffee farm as security.
Mr Muigai claimed in court that the lender did not release the full loan amount and frustrated his investment before coming back to claim that the borrowing had been defaulted.
Auctioning guarantor’s assets
Mr Muigiai further faulted KCB for auctioning the guarantor’s assets, holding that the security pledged by his Benjoh Amalgamated was sufficient to offset the amounts claimed by KCB.
Multiple judges in all superior courts dismissed Mr Muigai after ruling that he had in 1992 consented to settling the owed amounts but then defaulted, hence the bank was within its rights in auctioning the property.
Lawyer Kyalo Mbobu.
Mr Mbobu represented Mr Muigai in all the cases and at the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) where the latter sought the removal of several judges who handled the cases.
The JSC dismissed the first complaint that Mr Muigai, through Mr Mbobu, filed. Mr Muigai has since filed a second petition for the removal of several judges.
In his social media post, Mr Muigai claimed that several judges who ruled against him had been compromised. He has disowned the consent that has been cited to reject his appeals.
On Wednesday, the Judiciary issued a statement holding that Mr Muigai’s comments were mischievous, as all the judges handled the case within the law and made reasoned decisions.
“It must be emphasised that dissatisfaction with judicial outcomes is not proof of misconduct. It is mischievous, to say the least, of Captain (Rtd) Muigai to allege that all the judges who handled his matters and made orders against his companies were bribed, and those who agreed with him were not corrupted. The Judiciary treats all allegations of corruption with utmost seriousness.
Established mechanisms, including the JSC, exist to receive, investigate and determine complaints against judicial officers. In this instance, no evidence has ever been presented to substantiate claims of judicial corruption,” Judiciary spokesperson Paul Ndemo said.
Mr Mbobu was in 2022 caught up in a separate wave of controversy, as former Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) chairperson Wafula Chebukati claimed that he was among three individuals who tried to interfere with election results.
Mr Chebukati in court claimed that Mr Mbobu accompanied former Jubilee Party Secretary-General Raphael Tuju and former Busia senator Amos Wako to a 3 am meeting with the then IEBC boss on August 15, 2022 and asked him to manipulate the election results in favour of Azimio la Umoja candidate Raila Odinga.
Mr Chebukati said he rejected the demands, which he said were repeated again by members of the National Security Council who visited him at the national tallying centre at Bomas of Kenya later that day. He subsequently declared Dr William Ruto the President-elect.
