A businessman who featured in a viral video involving a physical confrontation with traffic police officers has reported that he lost Ksh150,000 during the scuffle.
The widely spread video features Naivasha-based businessman Francis Koigo having a heated altercation with a traffic police officer.
The motorist was enraged after the officer started banging his vehicle with a swagger stick - a common habit by traffic policemen.
Aggrieved over the issue, the businessman started filming the extent of damage caused to his car, and that was when the altercation aggravated.
In the video, the cop appears to push the businessman, seemingly in an effort to distract him from filming, but he holds off the policeman in self-defense.
Fellow officers pounced on Koigo, ganged up against him, and started raining blows on him eventually humiliating him and pinning him down against his car.
A Nakuru-based KBC journalist who filmed the incident was also allegedly beaten up during the scuffle. The Independent Police Oversight Authority (IPOA) is probing the matter.
The incident drew mixed reactions with National Police Service Commission Chairperson Eliud Kinuthia describing it as an ugly incident of a citizen insulting and confronting uniformed officers on duty.
Kinuthia further urged the public to respect the long hours, and endurance of police officers as they enforce traffic laws on the roads during the festive season.
Koigo was charged in a Nakuru court, having suffered soft tissue injuries from the ordeal where he was up against three police officers on his own.
Explaining his side of the story, the businessman termed the officer as unnecessarily "overbearing."
“I wanted to park my vehicle on the roadside in Barnabas, on the Naivasha-Nakuru highway, to talk to my brother, who lives nearby,” he narrated.
Before he eased off the accelerator, a “seemingly stressed officer” emerged from the sidewalk and asked the motorist to drive on.
“Before I could react, the officer hit my vehicle and as I stepped out to protest, he again banged the side of my vehicle and I got annoyed,” he explained.
“I was forced to leave my vehicle on the roadside and Sh150,000, which I had stashed inside the pickup, went missing,” he continued.
Mr. Koigo says he will sue the officers for assaulting him.
“I shall be seeking legal redress over the beating…it was humiliating and am still physiologically tortured,” he added.
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