Death Row Conspiracy

Eye for an eye. That’s what God told the Israelites. Laws today are too lenient. Leaders nibble at the carrot dangled to them by donors to disobey God. Retribution for crimes has little meaning, and the President is the arbiter of denying justice; the man at the helm of a system where thirst for power and pleasing the masters is baked into the cake.

For me it was imprisonment as one prisoner once told me, I was not different from him who was caged. I was the chief warden Kamiti Maximum Security Prison then. I had seen the whole lot of them—they never changed. Recidivism rate was high for death row and life imprisonment inmates if, and when, pardoned. I felt that death row prisoners should be executed immediately before the president was bribed with a donation by the Westerners and pardon thousands on the election year.

The worst happened in 2009. Thousands of convicted Kenyans awaiting their appointment with the hangman had their fates reversed when in one swoop the president commuted their death sentences to life imprisonment. The move was hailed as positive by the marauding Non-Governmental Organizations and human rights activists—Kenya was moving towards eliminating the death penalty. That’s when I knew the president did not have the best interests for the country at heart, no politician does.

Twelve years later, in 2021, death penalty was abolished. Immediately after the president signed into law a bill that allowed prisoners to vote. The incumbent was eyeing the 2022 general elections. Odds were against him securing another term, prisoners were to grant him another five years in the much coveted State House if tampering with the electronic voting system did not work.

I had just been appointed the Deputy Commissioner of Prisons. The first batch of the death row inmates were released that year’s Jamhuri Day. The ink had not dried on the presidential decree when most of those released went back to their crimes. Despite what analysts said, the same decree pardoning death row and life imprisonment inmates has been going on every five years just before elections. If politicians did not care for the victims who were forever scarred by the criminals they were releasing to vote for them I decided to do something.

I entered into an agreement with organized crime gangs and ‘rogue’ police officers who believed in natural justice. For prison aftercare programs, the prisoners would be recommended to work at certain organizations that are fronts for the gangs. The gangs  would set them up for crimes and blame them, then the rest is organized crime discipline—death only. My army of rogue police officers would hunt the others, gun them down, plant guns on them, and then the Inspector General of police would collect medals in the media claiming that his mbois have rid the country of another vicious criminal gang that was terrorizing the citizens.

Life is sacred; one who takes a life should have his own life taken away, too. Most death row inmates are murderers. It is in the interest of the society that the justice system should be punitive, retributive, to them. No killer can reform, they never do.