Minister skips event after daughter’s abduction scare

By Susan Anyangu

Assistant Minister Elizabeth Ongoro had to skip an official function to attend to threats of an attempted abduction of her daughter.

Yesterday morning, the Nairobi Metropolitan Development Assistant Minister received a threatening short text message, demanding Sh10 million or her child would be killed.

Speaking to journalists at a primary school in Nairobi where she had gone to pick up her daughter, Ms Ongoro said someone contacted her, warning if she failed to deliver the ransom, they would harm the child.

"I first received a text message early in the morning asking me to deliver Sh10 million by 10 am, or my child would be killed," she said.

Later, the sender called the Kasarani MP with the same demand.

Assistant Minister Elizabeth Ongoro

"On receiving that call, I was distraught and had to rush to the school where I found my child safe. But the caller seemed to know that my daughter was to later attend a music festival at 9am. It seems they had planned to pounce at this time," she recounted.

Rising crime

The incident comes hot on the trail of rising insecurity. At the weekend, unidentified assailants shot the PS in the Ministry of Youth Kinuthia Murugu on his way home.

Early this month, gangsters hijacked Khwisero MP Evan Akula on his way home. He was later released unharmed after a three-hour ordeal and robbed of Sh50,000.

Yesterday, Ongoro said she had also received threatening calls and text messages while on a retreat in Naivasha.

"I ignored them but when it involves the life of a child, the situation is serious and cannot be taken lightly," she said.

CID officers were yesterday trying to trace the owner of the telephone number.