It was just after 4:30pm on Friday when Samuel Njihia’s phone rang. He was seated on a plastic stool inside his small clothing shop on ACK Street in Mwiki folding a pair of jeans for a customer. He reached for his phone that rarely rings.
Outside, the noise of distant shouting and the unmistakable clatter of feet floated in.
There had been protests that warm afternoon just a few meters away from his shop over the killing of Abby Wanjiku, 18.
Samuel Njihia the father of Joshua Mwangi who was shot during demonstrations by residents of Mwiki, Nairobi.
Photo credit: Bonface Bogita | Nation Media Group
Her family said that she was found lifeless in her mother’s room at 11pm on Thursday. She had been raped and her throat slit using a broken bottle.
“There is someone who has been shot, please rush there,” the caller said.
Mr Njihia froze for a minute before recollecting his thoughts. He left his shop as it was — half-zipped backpack open on the counter, laces from a pair of sneakers trailing over the edge — and ran.
And as he ran, his thoughts raced too, but nothing made sense. His mind tried to resist a voice that flashed past. “Maybe it’s not him,” he thought.
He had heard the noise from the protesters earlier — the chanting, burning of tyres and the crowds gathering along Mwiki Road.
Abby Wanjiku and Abby Wanjiku.
Photo credit: Pool
The police kept their distance. At least that is what people said. Mr Njihia had even called his son at noon. He told him to avoid trouble and stay close to the matatu. His son had laughed.
“Don’t worry, dad. I’m just helping the driver. I’ll be home before dark,” he said.
But now, running past frightened shopkeepers and shattered stalls, Mr Njihia could feel it in his gut — that ache only a parent knows. The horrible weight of not knowing, mixed with the terror of knowing too much.
Different versions of the incident
His son Joshua Mwangi, who was 18 years old, had just completed Form 4, full of hope and ready for the world.
He had not yet figured out what he wanted to be — maybe a mechanic, maybe a driver — but for now, his father had assigned him the role of conductor in a matatu that he had recently acquired. Mwangi was the third born in a family of four.
At Scion Medical Centre Limited — which is barely 100 metres from his shop — Mr Njihia found his son lying on a hospital bed writhing in pain. He was told to rush his son to Kenyatta National Hospital for further treatment. But he was pronounced dead on arrival.
On Saturday, when Sunday Nation visited the scene, there were different versions on what happened that fateful Friday.
Everyone seemed to have seen something, yet no one could say with certainty what happened. On social media, outrage surged.
People spoke in low tones while glancing around. The ones who did talk — cautiously, nervously — told Sunday Nation that it was the police who shot Mwangi. They pointed to the spot on the road where he collapsed.
CCTV footage seen by Sunday Nation captures the last harrowing moments before the fatal shot. The footage, time-stamped between 3:40pm and 3:45pm, shows a tense stand-off between police officers and protesters. Young men, many barely out of their teens, are seen hurling stones across a narrow street, their faces twisted in fury.
For five minutes, the exchange grows more chaotic. The police seem to be overwhelmed and they walk down towards Mwiki Road and the protesters follow them while throwing stones. Then, two police officers approach the entrance of the Landmark Hotel — the building that had the CCTV camera. They look inside, pause briefly, then walk away.
In a separate cell phone video, taken from another angle and reviewed by Sunday Nation , a plainclothes officer — wearing a short-sleeved shirt and holding a pistol — is seen advancing toward the crowd. Protesters retreat while still throwing stones. The officer lifts his arm and fires. Seconds later, the officer jumps onto a waiting motorbike together with a colleague and the rider speeds off.
At exactly 3:45pm, the CCTV captures a young man in a red shirt carrying a limp body into Scion Medical Center. It was Joshua Mwangi who was being carried.
Mr Njihia said his son was shot above the right eye and the bullet did not go through his head. It is still in his head. A postmortem will be done at Nairobi Funeral Home.
“I don’t want revenge,” he said.“I just want justice.”
As he spoke, his eyes drifted towards the road. Towards the barricades. Towards something only he could see — the empty space where his son should still be standing.
Kasarani police boss Emmanuel Rono told Sunday Nation that they received a notification that someone had allegedly been shot by officers late in the evening. The family was asked to record a statement.
“There were protests during the day, it was not until late in the evening when we received the information. We have begun investigations. We are retrieving the CCTV footage to ascertain what exactly happened,” he said.
A few meters away from where Mwangi was shot, another family is also in mourning. Abby Wanjiku’s mother, who sells smokies, returned home late and found her daughter unresponsive.
The aunt, Ms Esther Waithera, said Wanjiku had recently joined the Inua Jamii computer training programme and had also begun pursuing modelling. Her teacher, Mr Peter Gachinga, helped her enrol in a modelling school in Kasarani. She was preparing for the upcoming Mr and Miss Kasarani competition.
“She had started to believe in herself,” said Ms Waithera. “She had big plans.”
