A popular gospel artist was arrested on the night of Saturday, April 18, while headed home after fetching his wife's medicine.
Speaking to Kenyans.co.ke, Singer Eko Dyda's wife, Sylvia, confirmed that her husband spent the night in police custody before drama ensued that saw him taken under forceful quarantine.
She noted the situation started getting out of hand when Eko, who was stopped at a roadblock never resisted arrest but the police insisted on towing his car away.
"The first time, he complied. It was late, and there was a roadblock. I enquired of the police officers if it was legal for a car to be towed if the owner had neither declined to drive the car nor was it broken down.
"The police officer, however, told me that they had their breakdowns ready and all the cars were towed. They arrested almost 50 people," she noted.
Dyda had reached the roadblock at 7:10 p.m. and his attempt to explain himself had fallen on dead ears. He had driven to Nairobi's CBD to buy his wife's blood pressure medicine and neuro care for her nerves. On his way back, his car broke down at around 6:30 p.m. and was able to get up and running at 6:50 p.m.
On Sunday, Sylvia was taken to Kilimani Police Station and was required to pay bail for her husband, which she did but never received a receipt for the payment. Earlier, the officers had declined to let her pay the Ksh5,000 through M-pesa.
Her eyebrows were raised when the officer who attended to her declined to write her a receipt. What followed was a frustrating game in which was taken round in circles as they could not tell her who was to hand her the car keys.
"After waiting for an hour, he brought Eko out from the cells, handed him the receipt and told him to go pay the towing charges to the breakdown vehicle operators, since it was they who had his car keys. We found the breakdown vehicle people behind the toilets. I found that weird. I told them l would only pay them if l got a receipt. They referred me to a female police officer who came, picked the Ksh5,000 cash and then took me to a shop inside the police station and gave me a receipt after I requested it.
"I asked her for the car keys and she told me that they were with the officer to whom l had paid the cash bail and who had lied to me that the breakdown vehicle guys had them," she added before noting that she heard one of the police officers claim he noted the woman record them.
They went home but continued receiving incessant calls from the police who requested them to go back pick their car. This puzzled them as they had already driven their car home. When this did not work, the officer claimed that Eko was needed to record a statement because one person they had been locked up with had passed away.
"We arrived back at the station at around 12:30 p.m. Eko was re-arrested and they took back the receipts they had given us but, luckily, l had taken pictures. The officer who had issued us with the bail told us to take back our money because the bail had been cancelled by the boss. Out of all the people who had been arrested that evening, we were the only ones who had insisted on being issued with a receipt.
"Eko had left me outside the police station and when l went inside to follow up on what was going on, l was told that since I had recorded them, they were going to teach my husband a lesson," she narrated.
Shortly after, she was informed that her husband had been taken to Kenya Medical Training Center (KMTC) a quarantine centre. When she went to the institution to check on him, she was told that he would fork Ksh28,000 to the state since he reportedly didn't want to pay the police Ksh10,000.
Speaking to Boniface Mwangi, Eko noted that Covid-19 rules were neither being followed at the institution nor at the cells and no tests had been carried out on them.
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