My life as a crime journalist for 2 decades in Kenya

By Dominic Wabala

NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 4- Crime reporting has dictated my journalism career that began in Kenya in 1998 during the anti-Karura Forest land grabbing demonstrations led by Nobel Laurette, the late Professor Wangari Maathai.

It was what is commonly referred to in journalism as ‘baptism by fire’ with nobody to hold my hand and induct me into the beat.

Although I joined crime reporting by chance, it gradually became my call of duty and specialization in days to come.

As a rookie crime reporter, I would stand at a distance cluelessly at crime scenes as veteran journalists who had been on the beat longer interacted with senior police officers for finer details.

At Nation newspapers there was Mburu Mwangi and Stephen Muiruri who handled crime.

At Standard newspaper, there was a West African Othello Grudah and former police officer Xavier Lugaga.

Kenya Broadcasting Corporation’s (KBC) crime beat was at that time handled by Kimeli Arap Kimei. 

It was during one of the Karura forest demonstrations that I had my first interaction with a senior police officer Francis Munyambu, who was the then Officer Commanding Gigiri Police Division (OCPD).

He was to later save me from the wrath of General Service Unit (GSU) anti-riot officers deployed to counter University of Nairobi students who had frog-marched my colleague Mohammed Duba and I from Globe Cinema roundabout all the way to Karura forest.

Gradually, I learnt you had to cultivate your own contacts and new sources without any help. I started by cultivating junior police officers as my news sources before gradually climbing up the ladder to senior police officers (Gazetted officers).

I quickly learnt and acquired the predatory story hunting skills that saw me gain recognition in a beat previously ignored by many.

During this period, not many journalists chose crime reporting because while you were the newsroom workhorse, there were very little opportunities to climb up the ladder.

A crime journalist is a newsroom’s one stop police issues consultant dealing with both formal, informal and personal matters that arise. 

In the newsroom, veteran court and parliamentary reporters would evict us from the old computers that were their preserve desks and we would only be allowed after they file copy.

Luckily most of the crime stories would emanate from Daily Crime and Incident Reports (DCIR) of the previous day thus giving us ample time to compile and submit stories in the mornings.

My daily routine consisted of waking up early in the morning, rushing to the newsroom and making calls to all the eight Nairobi OCPDs for what was ‘morning call up’.

Having filed newsworthy stories of the day, I would then hang around the newsroom for any incidents that would happen during the day.

It was the days of the Chief Inspector Timothy Kamunde who led the dreaded Makuyu based ‘Flying squad’ that hunted carjackers and robbers that had run roughshod over Kenyans.

This was a crop of detectives that sought no dalliance with journalists.

There were many incidents including bank robberies and car jackings that later informed the establishment of the Peter Kavila led Special Crime Prevention Unit by former Director of Criminal Investigations (DCI) Francis Sang.

This new team embraced embedding crime journalist in their operations in their quest to empathize with members of public.  

During one such time, the then Nairobi Provincial Police Officer Geoffrey Muathe sent a car to pick me up from my residence to accompany detectives conduct a raid at the university of Nairobi hostels where a cache of rifles was found in a student’s bank bed.

Investigations later established that some students had turned gangsters and would sneak the guns into the hostels after committing robberies in the Nairobi Central Business District (CBD) to avoid police lock ups.

As junior crime reporters, we learnt to co-operate across media houses regularly sharing and comparing stories to cover each other up.

When I moved to Nation Media Group as a Sunday Nation crime and investigations reporter, I informed my colleague Cyrus Ombati who was then reporting for People newspaper of a crime reporter’s opportunity at the Standard newspaper.

In response to the then Capital FM’s Editorial Director Michael Mumo’s request for a crime reporter, I recommended Bernard Momanyi who was then a crime reporter at the now defunct Kenya Times newspaper. Momanyi is now serving at the station as an Editorial Director.

Crime reporting then grew as more and more journalists took it up including female journalists like Evelyn Kwamboka who has since went on to become a court reporter and Bureau chief.

Over the years, crime journalism has attracted more young journalists who have chosen and thrived on the beat.

It is this growth in interest that has influenced the formation of the Crime Journalists Association of Kenya (CJAK) to better address their interests and challenges afflicting them.

Dominic Wabala, the author, is the Crime Journalists Association of Kenya chairman.