When President Uhuru's advisor vanished into thin air

By Job Weru

When Dr Naomi Kathure Mutea, a senior nursing lecturer at Dedan Kimathi University, received a call from her first born son, Albert Muriuki on December 24, 2013, everything seemed normal.

Muriuki, who was an adviser to President Uhuru Kenyatta on constitutional matters, in the course of the conversation made an appeal for a Sh50,000 loan.

This, he said was to fund his trip to his grandfather’s residence in Meru, where he intended to celebrate Christmas.

“I casually, told him I could not raise the amount since I had just sent his younger brother some money for a ticket from the US. Instead, I offered between Sh5,000 and Sh10,000,” said Dr Mutea.

Goodbye mum

Muriuki later called his mother informing her not to worry as he already had found a solution.

He followed this up with a text message wishing her a merry Christmas.

“What surprised me most is that despite knowing that his brother, Evans, would arrive later after Christmas Day, he wrote telling me to greet him. The message also included the words ‘goodbye mum’, which appeared unusual since he has never told me goodbye,” said Mutea.

And even after texting him back enquiring who had given him money and why he was telling her goodbye, Mutea never received any other call or a reply from her son.

“My son’s phone went off but his colleague, Patricia, told me he called her on December 30, last year,” the mother recalled, sadness and confusion written all over her face.

Dr Mutea had relocated to Nyeri after a short stint in the USA, where she moved to escape the eruption of post-election violence of 2008.

She has a home in Eldoret, where she had lived for 22 years.

Until his disappearance, Muriuki worked as a deputy Director on Constitutional Affairs and deputised former Mandera MP Abdikadir Mohammed.

He was appointed to the position in October 2013, two years after he arrived in the country from USA where he was pursuing a Masters degree in International Law.

In 2007, while still a law student in the USA, Muriuki worked as an intern at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands.

He graduated from Columbia Law School in 2011 and worked in Abdikadir’s law firm as an advocate and also for Nation Media Group, before he landed the State House job.

After missing out of the family’s Christmas festivities, Muriuki had on December 30, visited Kalee Cafe in Nairobi, which is owned by his uncle (Mutea’s brother).

Two workers later said he had enquired whether his mother had visited the facility.

Earlier on December 29, the lecturer sent her nephew identified as Andrew to look for her missing son at his residence in Kirinyaga Co-operative flats in Westlands. Security guards at the estate reportedly told Andrew that they last saw the tenant on December 24.

Anxiety grew

The mother’s anxiety grew on January 8, after Muriuki failed to report back to State House for duty. The mother, who was already worried, contacted some of his colleagues and who told her he was not at his workplace.

On January 10, after the family failed to trace Muriuki, he was formally booked as a missing person at Central Police Station in Nairobi, which was followed by the breaking in into his residence.

In Muriuki’s house, police only found an identity card, bank plates, a smart phone, laptop and an appointment letter to his State House job placed on top of his bed.

The mother has knocked on the doors of numerous offices including that of Interior Coordination Secretary, Mutea Iringo and CID Director Ndegwa Muhoro. She has been to hospitals and mortuaries to no avail.