The homestead of Kitui Deputy Governor Wathe Nzau was raided in the wee hours of Friday morning by unknown assailants who set a destructive fire at the property.
The arsonists sneaked into Dr Nzau’s residence in Mwingi town around 2:30 a. m. and set his lorry ablaze.
It is reported that they drenched the lorry’s rear tyres with petrol before setting it alight.
According to Nation, Ngilu’s deputy was not in the house when the incident occurred.
The burning truck attracted the attention of night guards from the adjacent St Joseph’s Mwingi Boys Seminary School who rushed to the scene.
The guards alerted family members and neighbours who managed to put out the fire before it burnt the lorry down.
Wathe mentioned he had been threatened several times by unknown people since Kitui Governor Charity Ngilu banned charcoal burning and trade within the county.
“Since March, we’ve been parking this lorry at the police station after receiving numerous threats. We stopped only recently after the threats stopped,” he noted.
The Deputy Governor remarked that the threats were connected to charcoal cartels unhappy with the ban.
He stopped parking the lorry at the Mwingi Police Station after assessing the situation and hoping it was secure at his compound.
The arson is also seen as a retaliatory attack to the March incident where a charcoal truck was burnt by youths at Kanyonyoo market along the Thika-Garissa highway.
Mwingi central OCPD John Nyamu revealed that investigations into the arson attack had begun.
