Fake cop Joshua Waiganjo drops new bombshell on March 4 polls

A scanned photo of Joshua Waiganjo and other senior police officers in an aircraft on their way to the Baragoi mission. [PHOTOS: MBUGUA KIBERA/STANDARD]

By Kiundu Waweru and Amina Wako

The man sensationally kicked out of the police force as an imposter last year has written a prison dossier that, he claims, will inspire shock and awe.

Joshua Waiganjo, who served in the high command of the police force for years, claims his yet-to-be-published memoirs would expose the web of deceit involving prominent personalities.

Waiganjo is being held in remand at Naivasha Maximum Prison facing multiple charges of impersonation of a police officer, robbery with violence and possession of police uniforms.

In an interview at the weekend behind prison walls, the former taxi driver turned police reservist alleged he had been muzzled by powerful forces.

“Since my arrest, there have been many unanswered questions,” he claimed. “The previous Government misled everybody and denied me a chance to speak out, watu wasijue ukweli. They succeeded and that’s why I decided I have to write a book, covering everything. I decided to even sacrifice my life, for people to know the truth.

“At the time of my arrest, I was in charge of Kenya Police Reservist in Rift Valley heading more than 6,000 reservists. As far as I am concerned, I still hold this position for I have not received a letter of sacking,” said Waiganjo.

He claimed his tell-all book, whose 31,162-word manuscript is ready, would be a bombshell that will expose deceit in politics and the police force. The book’s working title is Goodbye Police Comrades! 

Among the more sensational claims made during the interview is in the run-up to the March elections, he was approached by a senior politician with the offer of foreign asylum in return for testimony against another politician.

Story never heard

He claims emissaries of the politician made the offer during a meeting inside prison where he was holed up in February.

“They told me the small meeting was important. They also said I am an important person, and they can make my case go away and ensure that I was safe wherever I wanted to live.”

Waiganjo says apart from the prison visit, politicians also called him in prison and also accosted him in a Nairobi court and promised him money and asylum in the Netherlands if he agreed to a deal they had shared with him. He, however, refused to go into detail for now, saying they would form part of his book.

Waiganjo also promised to tell the story “we have never heard” about the Baragoi massacre in which 42 police officers were killed in an ambush.

He claimed in the interview the operation put two factions of senior police officers on a collision course.

“Some officers were involved, together with local leaders in Baragoi with stealing cows which they would transport through Baringo to Nakuru and share the proceeds. They were not happy with the operation.”

This, claims Waiganjo, led to his arrest in December 29, last year. “The police gave strange stories about how they arrested me, but I had come from the Christmas holiday in Uganda. I was arrested in Eldama Ravine, while having lunch with my wife.”

For now, Waiganjo is doing time in remand at the Naivasha Maximum Prison where we found him shuffling slowly in slip-ons wearing dull grey prison remand garb. 

“I do not think I can speak with journalists,” he shot out at first.

“You people painted me in a bad light, not giving me a chance to explain myself.”

Two appointments

Informed that he now had the chance to have his say, Waiganjo revealed that since his arrest in January, he had been busy recording his life before and after his arrest.

In the sixth of 10 chapters, which is titled Infiltration to KPR Service, Waiganjo gives his account of how he was allegedly conscripted as a police reservist in 2000.

As part of the record are two letters of appointment, one as an Inspector with the Kenya Police Reserve and the second as the Assistant Police Commissioner also with KPR. This, together with photos of Waiganjo in uniform flanked by senior police officers also goes into the book.

Double walls

Waiganjo says his arrest followed the retirement of the then police commissioner, Mathew Iteere, a week earlier.

“They claimed that I was untouchable because like the commissioner, I hailed from Mount Kenya.”

For this he says, he feels safe incarcerated as he is in the maximum security prison that has high-rise double walls and thoughtfully situated in the middle of menacing hills.

Waiganjo laughs uproariously as he says that prison life these days is just like boarding school. “The only problem is that you don’t get to go home,” he says with a hearty laugh.