Michael Kamau said he was walking home when he noticed a man carrying a gunny bag near Nyandarua governor’s office. The man started unbolting nuts at the base of a streetlamp, Kamau said.
“I rushed home and woke my father. I told him the lamps were being stolen."
Kamau and his father David Kimani rushed to the governor’s gate to notify the security officers on duty but found no one. They rushed to the nearby county commissioner’s gate and notified the officers, who advised them to report at Ol Kalou police station.
But even before they got to the station, Critical Infrastructure Protection Unit Nyandarua Central boss APC Hosea Odipo had received the report and called for reinforcements.
Mukundi termed the arrested officer as an enemy of development saying he should face the full force of the law
“On the way to the station, we approached a section where another lamp had been vandalised. We met an armed officer and we accompanied him back. We found the man still unfixing the lamp post from its concrete base, then he was handcuffed and ordered to sit down,” he said.
The officer recovered the gunny bag in which were a razor cut wire, a fork joe, spanners, screwdriver and a rope.
As the officers inspected the contents of the bag, their handcuffed colleague escaped into the nearby bush leading to a night-long manhunt led by Nyandarua Central DCI boss Eric Ochieng.
Ochieng said Ndirangu was rearrested at his house at Oleliondo but the handcuffs were not recovered.
The security lamps are a project of the county government and installation began late last year in the upgrading of Ol Kalou town. It is funded by the World Bank.
Chege Mbugua, the contractor, said a complete unit consisting of the lamp, the lamp post, the solar panel and labour costs Sh81,900.
He said the three units were stolen in December last year and that he reported the theft to Ol Kalou police station.
County police commander Gideon Ngumi confirmed the first three units were vandalised in December. He said police took the matter seriously and escalated patrols, hence, the silence on the matter until Ndirangu was found in the act.
“Unfortunately. the suspect is one of our own. We had not been looking for somebody we know. It is unfortunate that those entrusted to guard public property are doing the opposite,” he said
