Blood money: Kenya's deadly dance of death, compensation

Boniface Mwangi Kariuki wasn’t even protesting. He was not chanting. And while protestors were waving placards, Kariuki was holding a pack of face masks.

Kariuki, a 22-year-old young man, was simply hustling to make a living in a difficult economy by selling face masks in Nairobi’s Central Business District.

Yet, on June 17, during protests against police brutality, he was shot on the head at point-blank range by the very people mandated to protect him.

Kariuki, on Monday, June 30, succumbed to gunshot injuries after spending 12 days in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Kenyatta National Hospital.

In an ironic and cruel twist of fate, the protests on June 17 were sparked by another case of police brutality where a teacher and a blogger, Albert Ojwang’ had died in police custody.

And when Kariuki was finally declared dead on Monday, the government extended a hand not with justice, but with money.

Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale announced that all hospital bills of June 17 and 25 protest victims would be cleared, including Kariuki’s.

But Kariuki was already gone with his family and human rights advocates stating that what he needed was protection, not posthumous generosity.

“I have directed the management of Kenyatta National Hospital to waive all medical bills for patients injured during the protests and charge them to the hospital's Disaster Emergency Fund. This includes the outstanding bill of the late Mr Boniface Kariuki, which stood at Sh815,805,” said Duale.

“We offer our deepest condolences to families who have lost loved ones and extend our support to all those still recovering,” Duale said, in a statement issued on Monday night, hours after Kariuki’s death.

Emily Wanjira, the family’s spokesperson, criticised the government’s decision to waive hospital bills for victims of the June 17 protests, describing the move as a mockery.

She argued that their son should not have been shot in the first place.

“We did not take that lightly because has that (waiver) brought our son back to life?” posed Emily Wanjira, the family’s spokesperson.

“Our aim was for him to get well and come back to us, but it did not happen. You cannot kill and then say you are paying bills. It’s like hitting someone with a car and then giving them a new one as a way of saying sorry. It doesn’t work like that,” she added.

This was a spin of a cycle that plays out too often in Kenya, where a government that maims, kills its people then mourns their deaths with little or no responsibility.

As once stated by American libertarian Harry Browne that, “The government is good at one thing: It knows how to break your legs, then hand you a crutch and say, ‘See, if it weren’t for the government, you wouldn’t be able to walk.’”

And in Kenya, the crutches come as token payouts, empty sympathies and not structural change or accountability.

The state plays both killer and comforter; silencing people with bullets, then rushing to their families with goodies.

When Ojwang was killed by police earlier in June, his grieving family, including father, mother, wife, and child, suddenly found themselves sharing a table with Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja.

Homa Bay Governor Gladys Wanga led local leaders to Ojwang's home, loaded with goodies, among them cash donations from President William Ruto and Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

President Ruto reportedly donated Sh2 million to Ojwang’s family and in response, Ojwang’s father Meshack Opiyo publicly thanked him for “taking his son as his own.”

The President’s donation was announced by Wanga, who led other leaders in condoling with the family at their rural home on June 16, 2025.

“The President called and condoled with you and your wife, and shared how deeply pained he is as a father. He has sent us with Sh2 million,” Wanga told Ojwang’s father.

Governor Wanga also joined the cause by donating a three-bedroom house so that Mzee would have a decent home.

In a media interview, the father stated that he had a personal phone call with President Ruto and that the Sh2 million donation was sent the same day they spoke.

“He treated Albert as though he were his own son,” Opiyo said, expressing gratitude for the gesture.

The presidential donation came in tandem with a separate Sh1 million pledge from former ODM leader Raila Odinga. 

The generous donations, all from people he would never have met in a lifetime, if their son hadn’t died.

Governor Sakaja offered to cover all burial expenses, fund the child’s education, and clear the outstanding college fees for Albert’s widow, who is currently pursuing a course in community health.

In addition, the governor promised the blogger’s widow a job at City Hall once done with education.

Sakaja also committed to buying a plot in Homa Bay and constructing rental units for Ojwang’s parents to help them earn a living following their son’s death.

This tragic pattern has seemingly become familiar: Kenyans are killed by the state, jobs are offered to the bereaved, donations are wired, and politicians' presence is presented as compassion with their scripted sorrow.

But in most cases, justice, accountability, and prosecutions are usually missing.

According to Eric Mukoya, the executive director of the International Commission of Jurists Justice Mission (ICJ)-Kenya, had the government had treated Ojwang like one of its own, he would still be alive.

He argued that the government tried to play a political game over an issue that is fundamental to human rights.

“By the government going to condole with a family and deciding that they want to waive medical bills for victims of protests and other kinds of violations is sarcasm in the face of human rights,” said Mukoya.

“The government and its agencies are bound by the constitution, which demands that people have a right to picket, to demonstrate and this goes with Article 37 of the constitution. That people's political rights to provide and give opinions are sacrosanct,” said Mukoya.

According to him, the government first needed to acknowledge that its officers and its agencies had wronged Kenyans.

“If that was done openly, then it would have made a lot of sense that the government can condole with those who have and have been injured and for those ones who've lost their lives,” Mukoya argued.

He added that access to medical care, including emergency care with fewer barriers, is a right guaranteed by the Constitution.

“The government needs to remember it has no powers, that the powers they're operating on are delegated powers and they come with certain sanctions and those sanctions mean that the services that they purport to give people now through a waiver of bills is a fundamental right under article 43.”

“They are making it look as though it is a big thing or a favour they're doing Kenyans, they are only doing what the government is supposed to do,” Mukoya stated.

Instead, he called for accountability following police brutality witnessed during protests stating that people were killed despite a commitment by the National police service to protest protestors.

“The law is quite clear about what the police need to do. They should know that the law demands people to have the freedom to picket but also to be safe, according to article 29 of the constitution,” Mukoya added.

Mukoya stated that the act of a government to kill its people and then pacifying with grand gestures is a clear case of a government ‘taking its people for granted.’

“If Ojwang had at all somebody, there is the rule of law. They were required to have asked Ojwang to go to a police station to record a statement,” said Mukoya.

“And if he had been found to have something to answer the rule of law will have kicked in he will have been taken before a court of law and he will have defended himself and Lagat would have made his submissions in court,” he added

He went on, “That did not happen. Ojwang travelled for over 400 kilometres from Homa Bay to Nairobi without a statement and when we only got to hear about him, he was dead.”

In a functioning democracy, Mukoya argued that this wouldn’t happen.

Kariuki wouldn’t have died for simply showing up to work and Ojwang would have returned home to his family because instead, the police would protect the citizens and not execute them

And no parent would need to thank a president for offering cash after a state-sanctioned murder.

 “I am thinking that this government is taking people for granted, that even after travelling 400 kilometres, he had the energy to commit suicide. That is preposterous.”

“What we are seeing here is the government trying to give token payouts and sympathy and you know all these things to cover up for this whole mess,” he argued.

On the case of Kariuki, Mukoya regretted that he was shot just because he was aligning with protesters who needed masks due to the tear gas.

“At what point did he harm a police officer? At what point did he threaten the life of a police officer? To the point that he had to be shot and now he's dead,” Mukoya posed.

The family of Kariuki also questioned discrepancies in the medical bill issued after Kariuki’s treatment.

Duale stated the bill stood at Sh815,805 at the time of Kariuki’s death. However, the family says they were presented with a Sh3.6 million invoice from Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH).

They also expressed frustration with the handling of the case, claiming they have not been allowed to record statements at police stations.

“We are told the matter is in court, but no one has formally communicated this to us. We will be attending the next court session ourselves because we want to file a case,” said the family’s spokesperson.

The matter where two police officers were charged in regard to the Kariuki shooting is coming up on Thursday, June 3.

Wanjira further said they are organising for a post-mortem to be conducted before the body is transferred to Kenyatta University mortuary.