Shakahola massacre: Nairobi crime buster named Kilifi police commander

There have been changes in the National Police Service, Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) and National Intelligence Service (NIS) following the mass deaths in Shakahola, Kilifi County.

Former Kilimani head of DCI Fatuma Hadi has been named the new Kilifi County Police Commander.

Hadi is best remembered for orchestrating the arrest of three men who were caught on camera sexually assaulting a lady in a Guthurai-bound bus in 2014.

There was a public uproar after a video of the incident was circulated on social media.

The three, a driver, a conductor and a petrol station attendant were sentenced to death in July 2017 after being found guilty of robbing and sexually assaulting the woman on the night of September 19, 2014.

Hadi’s no-nonsense attitude has earned her the moniker ‘iron lady’ from her peers and those who have worked closely with her.

Hadi was in July 2022 honoured by the DCI for exemplary academic excellence having graduated as the best overall student in a senior staff course held in Rwanda.

The detective emerged top of the class in the Police Senior Command and Staff Course in a class of 34 students drawn from eight countries.

Purge

Hadi’s promotion comes after the Interior Ministry conducted a purge of all security commanders in the area in the wake of the Shakahola forest massacre linked to pastor Paul Mackenzie’s cult.

Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki ordered an immediate reshuffle of all senior police commanders and officers within Kilifi County in the aftermath of the Shakahola cult massacre.

Addressing the press on Friday, April 28, 2023, after visiting the area, Kindiki said all the top security leadership in the area would be transferred to other parts of the country and new leadership deployed in the place in a bid to heighten security and facilitate proper investigations.

“We will transfer all stations, divisions, sub-counties and county heads, and commanders of all agencies within Kilifi County effective today,” Kindiki said.

“That is the policy of the government, that all agencies including police service, administration police service, criminal investigations and other departments including the National Intelligence Service. All of them must be deployed elsewhere and allow their colleagues from other stations to push the investigations forward,” he added.

The Interior CS said that intelligence had established that some of the security personnel may have received reports earlier regarding the cult and ignored them, thus they couldn’t be entrusted to conduct the investigations again.

“We will replace them with their colleagues from elsewhere so that we can show the public that what we are doing is for the good of the country and the good of justice. If you are the OCS, or the commander or a person who ought to have either received a report and failed to act, then you cannot be part of the team that is conducting the investigations; the objects are not looking good,” Kindiki said.

The interior CS will today oversee a postmortem exercise of the Shakahola cult victims who reportedly died from starvation.

The government intends to commence the postmortem examination of 110 bodies so far recovered from the Shakahola forest.

According to Francis Gachuri, Head of Communications at the ministry, a team of experts led by Government Chief Pathologist Dr Johansen Oduor will carry out the postmortem examinations.