Ex-Recce squad officer who traded gun for a hammer

Former Recce Squad officer Nicholas Langat who now works at a quarry.

When terrorists struck dusitD2 hotel in Nairobi, Nicholas Langat (28), would have been in the squad that set off to rescue trapped Kenyans and terminate criminals.

But on that day, the former officer was nursing a hangover and breaking his back while crushing ballast at a quarry in his family farm.

On a good day, the former member of the elite squad earns Sh200 from the two wheelbarrows of stones he crushes.

"It is not every day that I manage to sell all the ballast that I crush," says Langat.

But how did the soft-spoken officer, who first joined the nation's security agency in 2012 as a General Service Unit (GSU) officer, fall from grace?

"In 2016, I travelled to the village to seek treatment for my wife who was suffering from throat cancer. She was also nursing our two-year-old baby girl. Months later, I was a widower after my wife succumbed to cancer,” he said.

Mourning and babysitting his daughter, who was then two years old, and with the suspension letter in hand, Langat sought to drown his sorrows in alcohol

“The suspension from my work couldn’t allow me to be employed by anyone else. The situation was very frustrating. I had no one to console me. I took to drinking any kind of alcohol, beer, busaa, changaa to try and forget my troubles,” he says.

Nicholas Langat, second from left, guarding President Uhuru Kenyatta at a past function.

To date - almost four years after Langat received his suspension letter, his employer is yet to provide a report over the matter.

"Since the suspension, my bosses have not made any efforts to contact me," he said.

But the third-born in a family of nine, whose previous work experience includes being in the elite squad guarding President Uhuru Kenyatta, now wants to get back his job.

"I need to pay school fees for my daughter and take care of my parents," says Langat. who enrolled in an alcohol rehabilitation program.

"I no longer drink the way I used to. I believe that it's only a matter of time before I get cured of the alcohol addiction," said Langat.