Dr Obwaka spends third night in police custody

Veteran obstetrician and gynaecologist Job Obwaka was arrested on Friday. [File, Standard]

Veteran obstetrician and gynaecologist Job Obwaka spent his third night in police custody on Sunday after his dramatic arrest on Friday morning as pressure mounts on the Directorate of Criminal Investigations to either charge him or grant him bail.

The 83-year-old Nairobi Hospital board member was arrested at 9am on Friday outside his clinic at the NSSF Building in Nairobi where he had arrived to see patients. Witnesses say officers from the DCI in a Subaru vehicle pounced on him and did not allow him to park his car before whisking him away .

His mobile phone was immediately confiscated and switched off, throwing his family into panic for hours before they established he was being detained at Muthaiga Police Station .

According to the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU), authorities have declined to grant Dr Obwaka cash bail despite the alleged offence being bailable under Kenyan law .

“The refusal to grant bail was reportedly based on unspecified ‘instructions from above’, a move it described as troubling and a possible misuse of State power,” KMPDU said in a statement issued on Saturday.

The union revealed that Obwaka is being accused of falsifying the register of members of a savings and credit cooperative, but maintained that that responsibility falls under the mandate of the office of the company secretary.

“Dr Obwaka was not present at the time when the alleged irregularities in these records are said to have occurred, raising serious questions about the basis and fairness of the accusations being levelled against him,” KMPDU Secretary General Davji Atellah said.

The union demanded that the veteran doctor be treated with dignity, warning that “an injury to one doctor is an injury to all.”