On Tuesday afternoon around 2 pm Peter Amunga was kidnapped while leaving the popular Lavington Mall. He was badly assaulted by men who crushed his fingers and then dumped in Thika. Popular education blogger Peter Amunga and close friends believe his radical stand on issues in the education sector could be the reason he was attacked.
He is an education blogger with a huge on line following, and a regular on TV and radio interviews.
He also runs many WhatsAspp groups, where majority of members are teachers, education activists and journalists.
Kenyan bloggers are demanding that police get to the bottom of this and have the suspects arrested as they claim laking of subscriber data has led to assassinations and it seems like Safaricom is not interested in sorting this, once and for all. Safaricom should be held responsible for allowing criminals to easily access subscriber data and use the same to hurt or eventually kill them.
According to Peter Amunga, he informed no one of his location. In fact, only KNUT Legal Officer Macharia Kabiru called him to ask where he was because he had not seen him for some time on line. People close to him think that KNUT camps which are not happy with his postings might have been behind the kidnap.
They believe so for the above and the following reasons:
After getting dumped in a thicket near Thika, Peter Amunga was taken to Thika Level 5 Hospital where before he was even treated, KNUT delegates Peter Wanjohi and Francis Mbau had already known about the incident without being informed by anyone and they only insisted on taking photos and leaving. Peter Wanjohi left in a huff from the hospital after the hospital staff confronted him on his true intentions and interests.
Peter Amunga has been greatly involved in the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) politics which is increasingly polarizing as two camps have emerged to compete for the seat of Chairman. While one camp associated with current Secretary General Wilson Sossion is aligned to Sossion’s deputy Collin Oyuu, another is aligned to Patrick Karinga from Nyeri.
The four men who kidnapped him from a matatu full of passengers clearly knew who they were looking for and shouted, “you are under arrest” while communicating with an afande or commander through a walkie talkie.
“The four men claimed to be from the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission. One had a walkie-talkie. He shouted, saying: “…afande! We have the target”. That was before he mentioned my name and ordered me to alight. They then handcuffed me and dragged me into a waiting car,” said Amunga.
The blogger claims his abductors put a hood over his head and tied his hands using his neck tie. They drove from the city to Juja, where the abductors hit his fingers using a hammer and inflicted some injuries on his ankle.
“After a thorough beating, I feigned death and they ran away. I later managed to gather some strength and hiked a lift to hospital. One of my fingers was almost falling off,” he said.
He is healing at a city hospital after an operation was done on his fingers on Wednesday
The matter was reported at Muthangari Police Station under OB No 54/11/10/2018 but he is yet to get much help from the police.