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A Kiambu businessman has sued Kitui governor Charity Ngilu over the alleged torching of a lorry ferrying charcoal last year.
David Waweru, through lawyer Jeremy Njenga, has filed an application at the High Court in Machakos seeking compensation of Sh7.5 million.
In the court papers, Waweru says he had bought the lorry to ferry goods to various destinations, including Nairobi and Kiambu counties for gain.
“On February 8, 2018, my vehicle was lawfully and carefully being driven from Tana River county loaded with 400 bags of charcoal. The driver was flagged down by Ngilu in the company of her bodyguard at a place known as Katenge after Kathyoko centre on the Thika-Garissa road,” he says.
In the suit, the Kitui government is listed as first defendant. Governor Ngilu is the second defendant.
Waweru says neither the vehicle nor the charcoal could be practically released as the vehicle and the charcoal had been burnt and looted.
“In the process, I lost not only the vehicle – then worth Sh7.9 million –but the charcoal consignment worth Sh800,000,” he says.
Waweru wants the court to declare that the loss he suffered was a result of the defendants’ illegal and unlawfully actions.
But Ngilu has filed her defence denying involvement in the alleged burning of the lorry.
In her statement, the governor denied having burnt the lorry and asked Waweru to prove and demonstrate to court his allegations of such a criminal act.
Ngilu also denied committing an illegal and malicious criminal act, or breaching the rule of law.
“I never violated the plaintiff’s and his driver’s constitutional rights or occasion the defendants any loss or damage allegedly suffered,” she says in her defence.
Ngilu says she did not usurp the role of the police in effecting arrest and that she is stranger to the action.
protest
In February last year, transporters in Limuru, Kiambu county, held protests demanding the arrest of Ngilu for allegedly inciting youths to burn lorries transporting charcoal in the county.
They lit bonfires along the Nairobi- Nakuru highway and blocked the road with logs alleging Ngilu was propelling ethnicity.
Kiambu deputy governor James Nyoro, area MP Peter Mwathi and Limuru Central MCA Joseph Kahenya, had asked IG Joseph Boinnet to arrest the governor, claiming there was evidence of her ordering vehicles to be set ablaze.
Mwathi asked the National Cohesion and Integration Commission to investigate, claiming it was tribal.
“We want the governors to know we need each other, our people conduct business from different counties,”Nyoro had said.
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