Machakos County Governor, Dr. Alfred Mutua has jumped to the defence of his new groundbreaking road. For the longest time, the governor has been making headlines for all the right reasons and has enjoyed the admiration of many for his incredible work.
However, he has come under fire in recent times after photos of the new 33 km road built in 3 months surfaced, showing the road in dilapidated conditions.
On Monday, the governor through social media rubbished those claims as propaganda and termed the photos as fake.
Raiders who hit Pandanguo and Jima villages in Lamu on Saturday night stormed a mosque and even had time to preach to Muslims who had gone there for prayers.
The attackers, who witnesses said introduced themselves as members of Al-Shabaab, raided the two villages twice, forcing villagers to flee in their hundreds. After the raid, they harvested maize at a nearby farm as the owner watched before storming into a mosque at Pandanguo where they delivered a Jihadist sermon.
They had found the worshippers deep in Taraweeh prayer performed by Muslims in the month of Ramadhan. Pandanguo and Jima residents in Lamu County have borne the brunt of ruthless gunmen, who have been linked to recent killings of at least 87 people in Lamu County.
According to locals, about 50 heavily armed gunmen entered the mosque and found six Kenya Police Reservists among the worshippers and warned them not to pick up their rifles which they had placed on prayer mats.
Mr Fumo Abdallah, who was among the six police reservists disarmed by the gunmen, told Nation the attackers threatened to kill them if they refused to surrender the guns issued to them by the government.
“They told us that we are in possession of illegal weapons and we should surrender them if we wanted to live,” said Mr Abdallah.
The residents are predominantly from the semi-nomadic Awer community, popularly known as Boni. They depend on wild fruits and honey, and hunt small wild animals like dik dik for meat.
Nation reporters arrived in the two far-flung villages after passing through a forest with diverse ecosystem of flora and fauna classified by conservationists as endangered.
