Sungu Sungu mystery and new look face of Kisii security officers

Owners of this building were allegedly involved in killing of a renowned Bishop Esther Bochaberi in Bonchari Sub County, Kisii County almost two months ago. It is becoming common that such suspects never return to their homes for fear of being lynched. (Photo: Sammy Omingo/Standard)

The journey for one of Kisii’s most mysterious groups started 16 years ago. That time, security in the region was slowly deteriorating, with violent crime threatening to tear apart the moral fabric.

Killings were meted out on innocent residents presumed economically fit and who were against an emerging gang terrorising the region.

Mothers and their daughters were raped in the full glare of their husbands and fathers. Men were not spared. They were shot and killed for refusing to surrender valuables. It was survival for the fittest.

Last resort

The police failed to contain the violence, and amid the crisis, a group that has grown to become feared and respected almost in equal measure by residents of this hilly countryside was born. Its first order of business was to restore calm in the region.

As a last resort, the government of the day formed a special crack unit and deployed it to the region. But this force, composed mostly of people from outside the region, could not walk the dangerous Kisii nights alone. They needed some protection from the local boys.

This was 2002, the year the Sungu Sungu gang came into existence. A decade and a half later, the organisation continues to instill fear, loathing and respect in equal measure.

Its birth was almost accidental. Initial thoughts were to bring about a group of young men eager to see positive change in society and work in tandem with local law enforcement in the war against organised crime.

But the groups first assignment to rid the community off unwanted types sent a chilling message across the villages in Kisii. A few days before the special crack unit snaked its way from Nairobi to Kisii through Narok, an elderly woman, Julie Nyosi, had become another open homicide investigation, murdered in cold blood.

Several people were arrested in connection with the murder. Among them was Boniface Machabe who was charged in court. Machabe made bail. But he didn’t make it home.

Immediately he left Kisii law courts, Machabe was accosted by five men who came out of an unmarked Peugot 504 station Wagon near a filling station within Kisii town. The men surrounded him before beheading him and slashing open his stomach - a signature move for the vigilantes. Minutes later Machabe, set free by the court, lay dead.

On that day, residents sat up and took notice of Sungu Sungu. The boys had announced themselves in town, and they were here to stay. That evening, a message was passed through the grapevine that known criminals were better fleeing before the boys caught up with them.

Two days later, Machabe’s younger brother was also brutally murdered after he defied an order by the Sungu Sungu not to burryhis older brother.

Even in death, the group said, the unwanted would know no peace.

Two years later, they embarked on another cleansing ceremony. This time, two chiefs and a teacher in Kisii’s Suneka were murdered. The grapevine lit up. Allegedly, the two administrators were killed for opposing activities of a criminal gang that had also been terrorising residents.

Villagers were on their wits end. The murders led to an orgy of violence that resulted in the burning of 11 houses suspected to be owned by family members of the suspected killers of the chiefs and administrators. That night, a former civic leader accused of aiding the gang that killed the chief was butchered in his house in Kisii town’s Jogoo Estate.

The orgy continued. Suspected criminals were targeted for crimes allegedly committed in Kisii. Some, hunted down like animals kilometres away in places as far off as Eldoret.

In an exclusive interview, Charles Mitika the current Bonchari Community Policing chairman said since 2003, much had been achieved in security.

At least ten of the criminals wanted for crimes in Kisii were executed by unknown persons in Eldoret and Migori, he said.

Each sub-location elects its own members whom they feel have an almost blemish free record to join the group.

“We have always received goodwill from the community,” said Mitika.

In May 2009, two young men in their early 20s were picked from their homes in Nyanchwa village and executed. A third was found in Botori village and killed by the roadside along the Kisii-Migori road.

The Sungu Sungu, it seemed, worked with the blessing of the region’s top command. They were a law unto themselves.

Sungu Sungu is famed for having an unparalleled intelligence system. A web of informers providing the fuel that directs the tentacles of the organisation. Its informers are everywhere, even in homes of suspected persons of interest.

The group’s operation in the area saw criminals flee. Those lucky to escape the dragnet have never returned home. But the purge left behind tales of loss, heartache and terror.

Relatives of the alleged killed criminals were usually warned against burying the deceased in their homes. Some have been prevented from even mourning the departed.

Unparalleled intelligence

Former Mayor in the defunct Kisii Municipality, Sam Nyangeso was a witness to this period of blood thirst. Nyangeso said Kisii was almost becoming ungovernable and it took the ruthlessness of Sungu Sungu to bring back some level of sanity.

“Innocent people were being killed every day. A time came and we all said no to crime,” he said. “The Municipal Council was forced to purchase another piece of land as a cemetery because the community was against the burying of criminals in their rural homes,” he says.

Mitika said the original idea to form the policing group, stemmed from an inadequacy within the police force.

“Then, some officers were accused of colluding with the criminals, luckily this came to an end,” Mitika said.

According to Mitika, crime has drastically gone down but the grabbing of private land remains a major challenge in Bonchari and other parts of Kisii. He is also quick to dispel many suggestions that they are a political group, whose members are gun for hires.

“We don’t solicit for money or handouts. We are grateful that the current Provincial Administration is working closely with our members,” Mitika said.

County Police Commander Hassan Abdi said they don’t directly involve community policing members in decision making, but they were their “ambassadors in the grassroots”.

“They play a critical role in eradicating crime. We are working closely with the community policing members in gathering information. There is no Sungu Sungu in the community and those committing murder or soliciting for money are doing that as individuals and not as a group.”

He said the group’s membership includes chiefs and police officers at different levels.

It seems now, just as it was years ago when the group was formed, that public opinion was for Sungu Sungu, their ad hoc, illegal, often violent crime busting modes adopted and seemingly accepted by the people.

It is also this same violent streak that keeps many away from speaking ill of them. As explained by some group members, they have ears everywhere.