An Eldoret court has directed that the two people among them a boda boda operator suspected of killing a Kenyan-born Ugandan runner Benjamin Kiplagat be subjected to mental assessment before taking a plea for murder.

Deputy High Court Registrar Rosemary Onkoba ordered the suspects: David Ekai alias Timo, 25, and Peter Khalumi 30 (pictured), to be escorted to Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital for mental assessment to establish whether they are mentally fit. 

“The suspects should be escorted by the police to Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret for mental assessment to establish whether they are fit to undergo trial,” directed Onkoba.

She further directed that the two be held at Eldoret GK remand prison pending their appearance before the duty Judge on January 31, 2024, where they are set to be charged with murder.

The suspects were arrested in connection with the gruesome murder of the athlete who was found fatally stabbed in his car in Kimumu estate along Eldoret-Iten highway in Uasin Gishu county on the eve of New Year.

At the scene of the crime, officers recovered a knife suspected to have been used in the killing of the 34-year-old runner from one of the suspects with police indicating that the motive of the incident appeared to have been robbery. 

The suspects are said to have stolen money and cell phone from the deceased during the tragic incident. The slain runner who hails from Elgeyo Marakwet ounty is the fourth athlete to be murdered in the area.

Two-time cross-country World champion Agnes Tirop was killed in her Iten townhouse three years ago. Her estranged husband Ibrahim Rotich is the main suspect in the murder.

Rotich who is out on a Sh400,000 cash bail has denied a murder charge in connection with her brutal killing before Justice Robert Wanada of Eldoret High Court.

A Kenyan-born-Bahrain athlete Damaris Muthee’s decomposing body was found at her male Ethiopian runner’s house two years ago.

The Ethiopian runner who is the main suspect in Muthee’s killing has since fled the country to evade justice. 

Last month, August, another runner from Rwanda, Rubayit Siragi was killed in Iten town in what the police believe was a fight with another Kenyan runner over a woman. The suspect has since appeared in court and denied the murder charge.

CS Mvurya has in the past said the main aim of organizing them into cooperatives was informed by the desire of the state to enable the artisanal miners access training, equipment and financial services.

In the reforms, the Government has also signed a memorandum of understanding with Indonesia in building a centralized mineral testing laboratory in the country. Currently, testing of all minerals is being undertaken abroad.

It was also declared that 20 percent royalty from the minerals will be shared with respective county governments.

The Government has already approved Sh2 billion in the budget for 2023/2024 for counties to receive their rightful share.

It was also noted that 10 percent of revenue from the minerals will go to the respective communities as part of public participation. By Wycliffe Kipsang, People Daily 

A research project exploring how the UK's rail network can be improved for disabled people is being run as part of a unique PhD programme at Coventry University.

Funded by the Motability Foundation, the research aims to improve disabled people's experience of using transport. The research, supported by the university's Research Centre for Future Transport and Cities, is being undertaken by Stephanie McPherson-Brown. 

Stephanie's research is focusing on the psychology behind why disabled people can feel reluctant to use trains to get around, and what can be done to improve this.

As part of the project Stephanie is interviewing people with a range of disabilities to find out about their experience with rail travel. She is also reviewing the support available and report whether it is good enough and offer recommendations on how this can be improved.

Stephanie's research project follows the release of statistics from the Department for Transport^[1] showing that 31 per cent of disabled people in the UK do not use rail, of which 42 per cent said they were unlikely to use rail in the future.

She said: "There are all sorts of reasons why disabled people might not want to use our railway network – be it stations not providing reasonable access, travellers feeling anxious about having a negative experience during their journey, or even the general reliability of our trains.

"Growing up, I've experienced my own share of negative experiences on public transport, such as dealing with stations with poor accessibility or a lack of information around disabled provision at stations when looking online.

"I often forced myself to battle through it and not make a fuss. It was only when I reflected on it that I felt much more could be done to improve things.

"If my research can paint a picture of the problems people are dealing with, identify the key areas to improve and offer solutions that will be a great first step in improving how disabled people get around."

Further research planned by the first group of PhD students researching transport and accessibility will look into how air travel and personal transport can be improved for disabled people.

Professor Paul Herriotts, who is leading the PhD programme, added: "The goal of the accessible transport PhD programme is to enable disabled people to be at the forefront of researching solutions to the problems they have to deal with every day when travelling.

"We are looking forward to seeing what Stephanie and her fellow students' research uncovers, and we hope it will be the start of valuable and insightful work that creates lasting changes in society."

The project coincides with other work into transport design and accessibility being undertaken at the university. Coventry University, alongside collaborators, has been chosen, to develop and run the UK's first National Centre for Accessible Transport (NCAT) – which is working with disabled people, disabled people's organisations, transport providers and policy makers to both undertake research and develop accessible travel solutions.

Find out more about the Coventry University's Research Centre for Future Transport and Cities and the National Centre for Accessible Transport.

Coventry University is a global, modern university with a mission of creating better futures. We were founded by entrepreneurs and industrialists in 1843 as the Coventry School of Design and we continue to work with businesses to ensure we provide job-ready graduates with the skills and creative thinking to improve their communities. 

Catherine Peace Namugenyi knows firsthand how life in Uganda can just refuse to march to one’s beat, and the only feasible solution is leaving family behind to seek hopefully greener pastures wherever they present themselves. 

Her greener pastures promised to be in Saudi Arabia, in spite of all the horror stories she had heard and read about casual workers (locally referred to as kadama), specifically those that work in Saudi Arabia and Oman. Against all naysayers’ talk, in 2019 she heeded a call from a friend already working in Saudi Arabia, to give the kadama life a chance. 

See, her live-in boyfriend and father to her three children including a set of beautiful twins, had just abandoned the family in a rented house and Namugenyi had found herself at close to zero. Through a licensed labour externalization company, her travel expenses were paid by her friend Asia Nakibengo, who gave her Shs 300,000 to cater for medical, clothes, and other requirements. 

Namugenyi deposited her children with her mother, who lives in Salaama, Munyonyo on the outskirts of Kampala, and joined those long queues of young women often frowned upon with pity at Entebbe international airport by other travellers, as she headed to the Arab world. 

But contrary to the harrowing stories from the Arab world, Namugenyi made the best of her not-so-ideal situation, set herself a target, and returned to Uganda in 2021 triumphant. Life in Saudi Arabia Jetting into Saudi Arabia on November 3, 2019, Namugenyi was excited about her new journey. 

When one has no more hope in one’s home country, it is normal to place all trust even in an unknown destination. On arrival, she was escorted to the office in Jeddah, where she was allocated to her new bosses, a family for whom she would henceforth be a housemaid. And indeed, it was a life no one would choose under normal circumstances, but she was determined to make it work. 

“We were living in an eight-bedroom house, but I had to carry my mattress every day from the bedroom to the pantry. Imagine I could not ever watch TV even when I had finished all my work. I was accustomed to sitting in the kitchen,” she told The Observer.

Narrating her ordeal, Namugenyi said at times she was denied healthcare, because her bosses chose to give her paracetamol instead of taking her to a health facility for a check-up.

“One day I had a toothache, but my bosses declined to take me to the dentist until I laid down my tools in protest and asked them to allow me to go back to the office and later exit the country.  The first day they thought I was joking. I locked myself in the room until they gave up and allowed me to visit the dentist and have the painful tooth extracted,” she said. 

Namugenyi said after traveling to Saudi Arabia, she went through immense psychological torture, considering that she was a mother who had just left her children behind. However, she had no time to feel sorry for herself; there was work to do and targets to meet.

“What I learned from Saudi Arabia is that it gave me a chance to meditate and think about what else I could do. That is why so many girls are always on and off the planes, thinking that Arab countries are the only sources of money, without thinking about long-term investment for the money they have literally sweated for.”

She was earning a monthly salary of Shs 900,000 (about $240), of which she religiously saved Shs 500,000 for investment and the rest would go towards paying school fees for her three children who were in boarding school. While in Saudi Arabia, Namugenyi opened up a Facebook account dubbed ‘Mitima Gyakaluba’ and later a WhatsApp group for fellow kadama, where they would share ideas and console each other about the difficulties they were going through at their places of work.

Some girls are physically and sexually assaulted at their places of work, but save for Namugenyi working like a donkey from sunrise to sunset, she did not experience physical abuse at the hands of her employers. Coming Home When she returned home on October 29, 2021 (she had promised herself not to exceed two years in Saudi Arabia), Namugenyi registered ‘Mitima Gyakaluba’ as an organization bringing together all former workers in Arab countries.

Members would save money and later invest it in chicken rearing, mushroom growing and other businesses. 

“I returned home with more than Shs 10m in savings. I bought a piece of land worth Shs 5m and used the balance to start a business.”

Due to the responsibilities and the amount of money left on her, she could not start a serious business. She ventured into selling charcoal in Nansana. The business was worth Shs 1.5m. She would sell charcoal alongside tomatoes and other items, but it was not a lucrative business.

She started to sell charcoal during the day and work as a waitress at Timeless bar in the evening.

“It was so hectic to work day and night. I became so exhausted that my body could not stand it anymore,” she said.

But she was determined to make it, and in 2022, Namugenyi even revisited her love for acting, securing roles in TV plays including Ntabadde, Kulabako, and Samanya, which were shown on Bukedde TV and Nyce TV. On social media, she had linked up with Godfrey Kimuli, commonly known as Taata Fibi, an actor with Bakayimbira Dramactors.

Then, Kimuli was also a marketer at one of the companies dealing in land and property. He introduced her to the company as a marketer where she sold tens of plots to many Ugandan girls in Arab countries, earning their trust. From a housemaid, she was now slowly transforming into an inspiring, enthusiastic and enterprising woman, who later even started her own company, Kimuli, Peace and Joel (KPJ) Dream Goal Consult Limited, with Kimuli and Joel Mubiru as shareholders.

It is a real estate company, through which Namugenyi buys and sells land, in addition to helping Ugandans in the diaspora – mainly Arab world – to construct homes or acquire real estate without fear of being cheated, because she has walked in their painful shoes. The company was registered in December 2022 with no capital, but they secured land on credit in Busunju – Vunamba, worth Shs 50 million.

To their surprise, they sold it all in one month with each plot going for Shs 2.5m, paying off their creditor and getting capital for expansion. In fact, The Observer interview took place at the KPJ offices in Kawempe, where Namugenyi had just finished speaking to her clients on TikTok.

She does this on a daily basis, before heading out to the field. Most of her clientele are housemaids in UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and beyond.  In just one year, Namugenyi, who has since also found love and is busy preparing for her wedding, says the future looks bright and she does not regret her detour to Saudi Arabia. 

Who is Namugenyi?

Born to Regina Nansimbi and Frederick Kakooza Mutesagga in Masaka-Nkoni, Namugenyi is a mother of three.  She went to St Theresa Kisubi Girls primary School, St Joseph SS Nkoni-Masaka for O-level, Makindye Secondary School for A-level, and YMCA for a certificate in early childhood development.

She is currently pursuing a certificate in accounting and finance at Makerere Business Institute. Although her parents separated when she was an infant, Namugenyi credits her stepmother, Dorothy Nazziwa, who raised her and supported her dreams, contrary to harrowing stories some may have about their stepmothers.

After graduating, she was employed at First Steps Junior School Gayaza, then New Horizon Manyangwa and Naalya Parents Gayaza. Namugenyi, who was earning Shs 200,000 from teaching faced financial challenges; so, she would teach during the day, then give women manicures in the evening and vend clothes in the open markets to make ends meet.

When push came to shove, she threw in the towel and decided to take the hustle to Saudi Arabia, which, surprisingly, ended up being her turning point.  By GEOFREY SERUGO, The Observer