This archive report was first published on 15 December 2019.
James Njuguna Murigi, a 30-year-old actuarial scientist and deputy CEO of Mentor Sacco, died under mysterious circumstances on September 23, 2019. The deceased was yet to start a family.
According to his family, the initial account of his death was a motorcycle accident. However, a postmortem revealed that he suffered multiple blunt force trauma, including a fractured skull, injuries to the right arm and shoulder, stomach, and right leg.
The family believes that the activities of the day he died were behind his death and that it was not a motorcycle accident but a murder. They have raised several questions about the circumstances surrounding his death, including the fact that there were no witnesses to the accident and that the motorcyclist managed to ride away from the scene.
On the day of his death, Murigi had visited his land in Kambirwa, Murang'a County, which he had bought for Sh2.2 million earlier in the year. He had also been called twice to the Mentor Sacco offices, a non-working day, to attend to some matters.
His family has since established that when he was heading to Kambirwa, he was called by his boss, the CEO of the sacco, to resolve an incident at his workplace. They believe that he left the Sacco building and made it to his farm, where a farm help has confirmed that he was there and watered some crops.
However, the family claims that the motorbike incident could be a well-choreographed move to mask the real killers. They point out that Murigi had disclosed to them that there were work-related issues due to the construction of an 11-storey building, and that he had been complaining about pressure from some people over a deal related to the building.
The Mentor Sacco CEO, Joyce Ndegwa, has dismissed the claims that Murigi's death was work-related as baseless. She stated that although it is not clear why the architect wanted to take photos, the deceased would have been the last person to deal with the architectural issues since he had not yet joined the company when the architect was involved with the building.
Ms Ndegwa described Murigi as an industrious and visionary leader whose absence will forever be missed at the company. She called on the police to find the boda boda rider that allegedly crashed to conclusively deal with the matter.
