NAIROBI, Kenya Dec 14 – Fresh questions have emerged over the final movements of former Lugari MP Cyrus Jirongo, with his funeral committee demanding answers from investigators even as police maintain he died in a head-on collision with a passenger bus along the Nakuru–Naivasha Highway.
Former Westlands MP Fred Gumo, who is chairing the committee, accompanied by his assistant George Khaniri, said the family was struggling to reconcile accounts of Jirongo’s last hours.
“We are demanding answers. The family is demanding answers,” Gumo said.
“He was travelling from Karen to his home in Gigiri. How did he end up several kilometres away in Naivasha?”
According to Gumo, Jirongo left Karen to his home in Gigiri, a relatively short journey within Nairobi.
National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetang’ula has since revealed that he met Jirongo at a restaurant in Karen on the evening of Jamhuri Day, and left him there.
The two met from 8.30pm to 9.30pm, in what Wetang’ula described as an ordinary conversation between longtime political colleagues.
He said there was nothing unusual about the meeting and no indication it would be their last.
Wetang’ula said he excused himself to rest ahead of a planned trip to Mazeras the following day.
“I told him I was going to rest because the next day I was travelling,” he said.
The Speaker said he only learnt of Jirongo’s death the following morning after waking up to messages on his phone.
“I woke up, opened my phone and saw messages saying, ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry — Jirongo has died,’” Wetang’ula said.
A police report filed at Naivasha Police station states that Jirongo died after his Mercedes-Benz collided head-on with a bus at 3am.
The report states that Jirongo, 64, was driving a Mercedes-Benz, registration from the Nakuru direction towards Nairobi when he failed to keep to his inner lane and collided head-on with an oncoming passenger bus.
The bus, ferrying 65 passengers and driven by Tirus Kamau Githinji, 52, was travelling from Nairobi to Busia.
Police say Jirongo sustained serious head injuries and died on the spot.
Gumo has said the family is seeking a clear explanation of Jirongo’s final movements.
“Only the police can establish what happened,” he said, “Let them look at CCTV footage, even on the highway, and tell us what happened because we want answers.”
Jirongo, a prominent businessman and politician, rose to national prominence in the early 1990s as the leader of Youth for KANU ’92, later serving as Lugari MP and a Cabinet minister.
