Photo/WILLIAM OERI/NATION David Mugah sold bhang and was ready to kill for as little as Sh50,000 until he realised there was more to life than crime.
By PAUL LETIWA pletiwa@gmail.com
Posted Monday, August 1 2011 at 17:32
Posted Monday, August 1 2011 at 17:32
During this year’s Cooperative Day celebrations, a slender young man rose to the rostrum and told the whole world that a few years ago, he was willing to kill a school teacher for as little as Sh50,000 but somehow circumstances conspired to ensure that it didn’t happen.
That man was David Mugah, and today he is a responsible citizen helping transform lives. It all started with a phone call one afternoon in March 2005.
Then a Kenya Polytechnic student, Mugah could not, in his wildest imagination, imagine how his life would change when he answered the call from Stella*, a Nairobi secondary schoolteacher he had known for about two years.
Stella had an issue that had been disturbing her for some time, she told him. That “issue” was that she suspected a fellow teacher by the name Mumbi* was dating her husband.
After warning Mumbi several times to leave her man alone, Stella felt the other woman was ignoring her concerns and now wanted Mugah’s help.
Her plea to him was as simple as it was blood-curdling: she wanted Mumbi dead — and Mugah was the man to do the job.
Her thinking was simple; like most of his colleagues in college, Stella knew that Mugah, whom she had met through his friendship with her daughter, was church-mouse broke and would do anything for cash.
Sitting pensively in our offices a fortnight ago, Mugah told us, on record, that he had done several odd jobs that enabled him to survive in the city, but when he received the call from Stella, he never thought he was going to be given an assignment worth “so much more money”.
It was a story that evoked a lot of emotion, a riveting narrative that, after careful analysis, we decided would best be told in his own words. So, here goes:
“When we met, Stella told me she was ready to give me an assignment and pay me some money.
“She wanted me to execute someone, a woman whom she suspected was going out with her husband, and asked me how much I would want to be paid.
“She gave me two options; to use sulphuric acid on the woman or abduct her and take her somewhere outside Nairobi, kill her and dump her body there. Of these two options, I was supposed to pick one that I felt was safe and easy for me.
“I went for the second option because I felt splashing acid would not be that fair to the woman. As I had never been hired to kill someone before, I was at a loss to make a quotation. Sensing that I was a rookie in the business, she offered me Sh50,000.
“This amount was to cater for any weapons to be used during the mission, transport for my “boys” (if I had to get other people to help me), accommodation, fees for the service and anything else that I thought would come in handy.
“I did not argue with her over the sum because at that point I had no money at all. So I thanked her for offering me the opportunity, told her to let me think of the best way to execute the mission, informed her about my two friends who would help me in the murder, and left.
Proof in form of pictures
“We agreed that she should pay us 60 per cent of the money (Sh30,000) before the assignment and the balance after we executed the woman. We also agreed that we should present her with proof in form of pictures.
“After the discussion, I contacted my boys. We agreed to meet at a restaurant in Nairobi. I told them about the deal, the amount we were to earn out of it all, and the deposit I had demanded as a sign of goodwill. They were happy about it and told me they wouldn’t mind joining me in the mission.
“On the evening of the same day, we went to the Eastleigh neighbourhood of Nairobi, where we had been told we could easily hire weapons, to figure out the kind of weapons we would use in the execution.
“One of my friends knew the backstreets of Eastleigh very well, so we sat somewhere to figure out how we would kidnap the woman and how much the entire mission would cost us.
“Eventually, we decided to go for tools that looked less harmful but were indeed very dangerous. A gun, we figured, would arouse suspicion and get us arrested.
“We also discussed how to monitor her movements, the times she got back from work... and so on.
“While we were still in Eastleigh, I called my client to ask her for a picture of the woman so as not to target the wrong person.
“We met in town where she gave me the photograph. We agreed that I would pick the Sh30,000 at Kawangware BP petrol station at 11.30pm the same night.
“Back in Eastleigh, I found my boys had already found some weapons — a sword and a few blunt objects. All was in order.
“My client had given me directions to where Mumbi lived — Nairobi’s Umoja One Estate — all the way to the plot and house numbers.
With the photo, I would not mistake her for someone else, especially not when I knew her exact domicile.
“The two rival women taught in the same school, so the client even described to me the kind of clothes Mumbi was wearing that very day.
“We travelled to Umoja and whiled away the time next to a small kiosk, watching people get in and out of the estate and waiting for our target to walk into our trap.
“At about 7.30pm, we saw Mumbi walking down the road accompanied by three other women, probably her neighbours.
“She was in a red skirt (just as the client had told me), a greenish top and black, high-heeled shoes.
“We readied ourselves to pounce... but there was one little problem we had not thought of. The road was too busy, and if we were to execute the plan with minimal risk, we needed a get-away car.
“So we agreed to collect the money from Kawangware, where my client lived, and waylay Stella the following morning on her way to school at a place that was less busy and a bit bushy.
“We arrived at Kawangware, where we were to collect our deposit, three hours to the agreed time and decided to take a few drinks at a nearby pub as we waited for Stella.
“At around 11pm, I called Stella on her mobile phone but she did not answer. I called her several times but still no one answered the phone. After about half an hour, we decided to call off the mission and went back home.
“Early the following morning, I tried calling her but no one answered the phone. Sensing something was amiss, I called my friends and we decided to withdraw from the deal until she called and told us whether she was still interested in the contract.
“She was the one who had given us the assignment, and we wondered why she was not answering the calls.”
When DN2 asked Mugah whether he eventually asked Stella why she had changed her mind, he said they didn’t hear from her again. But he was still on the criminal path.
Again, in his own words: “That was how the life of that woman was saved. But we were very disappointed because we saw an opportunity to make good money fade away into oblivion.
“When the deal to kill failed, I got into the bhang business. I met a friend, a barber who used to shave me in Kikuyu, and he told me how I could make money from the bhang business.
“He said all we needed as capital was Sh500. Because we were desperate for money, we quickly raised the amount.
“We started by distributing bhang in Lavington, Parklands, Gikomba, South C and other neighbourhoods in Nairobi and made about Sh90,000 in less than three months.
“After three months, we decided to leave the bhang business because we thought it was putting us at a risk of being arrested.
“I also came to realise that crime, other than the fact that it was paying handsomely, was too risky for us.
“We decided to look for legal ways to get money and entered into the garbage collection business.”
In 2009, Mugah and his friends formed Vijana Business Executive Sacco, which gives loans to the youth to start small businesses, besides educating them on the evils of crime.
“We travel around the country giving young people hope and advising them on how and why they need to avoid criminal activities,” says Mugah.
*For legal reasons, we have changed the names of the two teachers. Send your comments to dn2@ke.nationmedia.com
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