Gaucho reveals harrowing experience in police custody, how Raila saved him
Clavince Gaucho, the self proclaimed president of the Bunge La Wananchi has shared his experience in police custody after being arrested on Tuesday morning, May 23, 2023.
He says he was nabbed when he went to Central Police Station in Nairobi to pick his phones that had been confiscated during a prior arrest.
He narrated this to the media after being released 24 hours later without any charges being preferred against him.
Gaucho said he was called by a female police officer to go and pick his mobile phone just after he had left a local media house where he had been for an interview.
Upon arrival, the female officer informed him that she had left the key she needed to access the phone and left him in the Directorate of Criminal Investigations office within the station.
Apparently, before she returned, the Officer in Charge of Station came to him, asked him if he was Gaucho and directed him to his office. The Officer Commanding Station (OCS) then told him the Officer Commanding Police Division (OCPD) at Central Police Station had been looking for him for a while and it was during this time that seven other people came into the office and picked him up.
“They placed me under arrest, put me in one of their cars for one hour and then escorted me out in a convoy of three cars. They took me around for a long time and while in the car, they kept telling me that I am bothering the government very much. We went all the way to Kikuyu and Kiambu. Later, at around 6:30pm, I even thought they would kill me, I kept asking them to take me back to the station but they refused. They told me they would either take me back late or I will sleep in the car. At 7:00pm, they took me to Ruiru Police Station where they deposited me and the DCIO wrote a statement and brought it to me. They read it to me, saying that on a certain past date, on the last maandamano day, they claimed I was the one who organized the burning of a matatu on Ngong Road, that I hold illegal assemblies, that I incite people and spread hate speech,” said Gaucho in part.
He went on to claim that he refused to confirm or deny the accusations leveled against him and there was no document of theirs that he was going to sign except for giving them his name and identity number. The police also allegedly refused him to call his lawyer to look into the matter. According to Gaucho, at this time, the police began threatening him with violence and death.
“I told them that if that day was the day for me to die, I had accepted my fate but there was nothing I was going to confirm or deny beyond giving them my name and ID number. They asked about where I live, saying that they had been following me since last week. I slept there and they came back for me in the morning at 6:30am with two vehicles, one of them was full of armed Administration Police. I thought they wanted to go and capture Al Shabaab or something but it was all my escort. They brought me to Muthangari Police Station and locked me up in a cell for a bit before the good OCS released me,” added Gaucho.
They wanted Sh 50,000 from him but Gaucho claimed he has a condition in which when he becomes shocked, he forgets things for up to five hours and at that time, he had forgotten his M-Pesa pin number. They also wanted a cash bail of Sh 100,000, down from Sh 200,000, but he them he did not have that kind of money. They then insisted on charging his mobile phone and sending him to an M-Pesa shop to withdraw Sh 50,000 but he reminded them he couldn’t remember his PIN number.
“I asked them to let me call people who can help me get that money so that I give them. We haggled for a while and then they finally ended up asking for Sh 30,000. It took us a while until now that you see me and I was able to get someone to agree to help me with the money. At the last minute, Jakom Raila Amollo Odinga sent me Sh 30,000, and I believe if he had known this earlier and if my phone hadn’t been taken away, then our people who support Bunge La Wananchi would have raised all this money including Uhuru Kenyatta, our former president,” added Gaucho.
He is scheduled to present himself to the police at Kilimani Police Station on ay 31, 2023, for further investigations into these matters.
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