"She wasn't a whistleblower, she could've told me" - husband of slain NHIF employee

Paul Mbogo, husband of the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) employee who was reportedly shot dead by a sniper at Nairobi Central Business District, now says that his wife was not a witness in any case.

Speculations were rife on social media that Mary Lilian Waithera Gathenya was killed because she was a high profile witness in a sensitive case involving her employer. 

But speaking for the first time since her death on Monday, February 13, Mbogo says that his wife could have told him if she was a witness in a case.

“She was not a witness of anything. Mary never hid anything from me. Even when she sneezed during the day, when we met in the evening she would tell me,” Mbogo said on Saturday, February 18.

A devastated Mbogo revealed that he met his wife in 2006, describing her as an incredible person, a loving wife with no drama.

“She was close to me, and many people used to tell us our relationship was very abnormal. And I told them, ‘Let it be as abnormal as it can be.’ It is because we were each other’s comforters. My neighbours, my family have never heard that my wife has gone back home because we have had fights. It was a perfect match,” he added.

The couple has two boys; one a Form Three student and the other a Grade Four pupil. Mbogo was speaking to parents from the school where his last born is a pupil.

'Could have been a whistleblower'

Wiper Party Leader Kalonzo Musyoka, during an Azimio La Umoja One Kenya Coalition rally in Kisii on Friday, claimed that Waithera could have been a whistleblower.

"This mama, from information, she could be a whistleblower like the 2022 August presidential polls whistleblower.

"The newspaper people should not rush to report it was not an assassination plot. How do they know? Maybe this is practice leading to return of political assassination in Kenya," Kalonzo said.

Autopsy results

An autopsy conducted at Kenyatta University Mortuary revealed that Waithera died of a gunshot wound.

"The female NHIF staff who collapsed and died along Kaunda Street on Monday evening, February 13, had been shot from an elevated angle. Autopsy revealed the bullet was lodged in her lungs," Nairobi County Police Commander Adamson Bungei said.

Waithera had complained of shortness of breath and sharp pain in her chest moments before she collapsed and died.

"The bullet entered through the collar bone having been fired from an elevated angle," the police boss explained.