Kitui East MP Nimrod Mbai caught on camera assaulting Kenya Power staffer

Kitui East MP Nimrod Mbai addresses the media in the Parliament, Nairobi. [Elvis Ogina, Standard]

Kitui East Member of Parliament (MP), Nimrod Mbai, has been caught on camera assaulting a staffer of Kenya Power.

The incident happened on Monday, July 3 evening, in the Acacia area of Kitengela in Kajiado County.

According to the MP's remarks in the six-minute video, the two parties disagreed after Kenya Power officials discovered illegal electricity connections to Mbai’s home.

In the video, the MP is donning a Bermuda blue polo shirt and beige khaki pants and is armed. He appears angry and full of himself, hurling insults at the dumfounded officials from Kenya Power and at the same time intimidating them.

The team from Kenya Power was reacting to continuous complaints by clients in the area when they discovered that the lawmaker had illegally connected electricity to his home.

Therefore, they decided to confiscate materials used in the illegal connection, something that did not sit right with the MP.

“The president said that if Kenya Power finds someone with an illegal electricity connection, the solution should not be disconnecting. They should install a metre box for the client and start collecting their dues. You are defying what the president and minister said.  Why are you disconnecting? Bring back my property,” he shouts at the Kenya Power officials.

“Bring them back here or I remove the wheels of your car. Return my property. Are you the one who is supposed to call back that lorry that has taken my property? Can you call it back quickly? Make that call,” he shouts before slapping one of them.

The Standard has spoken to the senior employee at Kenya Power who was assaulted in the clip. Julius Okangi is Kenya Power’s Operations and Maintenance Manager in Kajiado County.

He says he got involved in the matter after one of the company’s field teams reported an illegal connection that was interfering with the current flow of other clients' electricity current in the area.

“The office had been receiving numerous complaints of low voltage and frequent interruptions from clients in the area… We sent a team which discovered that a transformer was overloaded and that there was a line that was illegally connected. They went to the source, found a caretaker, and informed him they would disconnect because it was affecting almost 300 households,” Okangi tells the Standard.

“The next day we got another complaint and when we sent the team, they realized the line had been reconnected. That is when the supervisor escalated it to the county and I picked it up,” he adds.

Okangi says the MP held them hostage for about three hours.

“He held us hostage from 5 pm to 8 pm demanding we reinstate the electricity connection… We left that place with nothing,”

Efforts by The Standard to reach the MP for a comment were futile. He did not answer our calls. At the time of publishing this article, he had not responded to our text message.

According to Parliament’s official Website, Mbai joined the National Assembly for the first time in 2017 on a Jubilee ticket.

He successfully defended his Kitui East seat in 2022, on a United Democratic Alliance (UDA) party ticket. He also served as an Administration Police officer between 1996 and 2017.

On Wednesday, June 4 evening, Kenya Power’s Human Resource manager Cecilia Ungu-Uvyu communicated about the incident.

In the communique, Kenya Power has vowed to protect its employees while in the line of duty, adding that that the incident is under investigation by its security personnel.

“We wish to assure all employees that the unfortunate incident at Kitengela, Kajiado County is under investigation by the Security Office and recommendations will be implemented to provide support to employees as they go about performing their duties. The culprit is being pursued by security agencies in conjunction with our security team,” a statement reads.