Nandi County Senator Samson Cherargei claims their arrests on Thursday morning during the ongoing Kabuchai parliamentary by-elections were pre-meditated.
DP Ruto allies Cherargei, and MPs Didmus Barasa (Kimilili), Wilson Kogo (Chesumei), and Nelson Koech (Belgut) were arrested on allegations of intimidating voters.
Cherargei says that police officers monitored their movements, leading to an orchestrated arrest.
“The arrests were pre-meditated because they already knew where we were going,” Cherargei told The Standard. “They were the first police officers at the patrol point. Then, there was a second group at another point to ensure we passed exactly along the routes that they had planned.”
Cherargei alleges that the person behind their arrests was a “Personal Assistant to a senator.”
“The P.A was the one supervising our arrest. He even identified each one of us to the police officers, and that is how we got arrested.
“We wondered what authority he had to warrant our arrest yet he was not the county commander,” added the Nandi senator.
Kimilili MP Dismus Barasa reiterated Cherargei’s complaints, adding that he was almost attacked while in the police car.
“A young man came straight to me wielding a sharp object when I was in the police car, ready to attack me,” he said.
As they continued pondering over the cause of their arrest, Belgut MP Nelson Koech said that they were arrested shortly after leaving the polling station.
“Our UDA candidate Evans Kaikai had just cast his vote when we left. They blocked all the vehicles and came to us,” says Koech, who opined, “they did not care who was in the car. We were all arrested except the driver.”
Koech insists that theirs was an illegal arrest, a replica of what happened during the December 2020 Msambweni by-elections.
“These people want to intimidate us so that we cannot go around checking where rigging might occur in the polling stations,” Koech said.