Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna has lifted the lid on a tense phone call he made to Police Inspector General Douglas Kanja on the day Dr. Job Obwaka was taken into custody. Speaking at the veteran gynecologist’s memorial service on Wednesday, May 13, Sifuna revealed that the IG claimed to know nothing about the arrest even as the 83-year-old doctor sat in police custody.
Sifuna told mourners he reached out to Kanja directly, fully aware of the high-stakes leadership dispute surrounding Nairobi Hospital that had placed Dr. Obwaka in the crosshairs of the authorities.
“I called the police IG and asked him what was going on because we were all aware of the dispute with Nairobi Hospital. Of course, he feigned ignorance and said that he was not aware of what was going on,” Sifuna stated.
The ODM Secretary General did not mince words about the fear that gripped him during those hours. He told those gathered at the memorial that he harbored serious concerns for the doctor’s safety while he remained in state custody and that the silence from the police boss only deepened that anxiety.
“Mambo Ni Matatu” – Sifuna Points to Pressure From Above
Sifuna went further, linking the arrest to what he described as a deliberate strategy to resolve the Nairobi Hospital dispute through force. He invoked President William Ruto’s well-known “mambo ni matatu” phrase, a reference to the three options the executive has publicly cited when dealing with those perceived as obstructors, suggesting the same pressure was being applied to Dr. Obwaka’s situation.
“Certain pronouncements had been made by the highest of this land, that the question of the Nairobi Hospital was going to be resolved in the ‘mambo ni matatu’ way,” Sifuna added.
Alarmed by the doctor’s condition and age, Sifuna pleaded with the inspector general to release him on bail, arguing that a man of Dr. Obwaka’s years had no business spending a night in a police cell.
“Some of us are very young; even if you keep me in for two weeks, my wife would not even notice because I am away so much. Every once in a while, my daughter will remind her to call.”
“I told them that Dr. Obwaka is a very old man, and he must be frail at his age. I asked them to give him whatever cash bail conditions and let him go home,” he noted.
A Life Cut Short After a Disputed Arrest
Dr. Job Obwaka, the longtime chairman of the Nairobi Hospital board, died on May 1, 2026, after suffering a cardiac arrest while being rushed to hospital. His sudden passing initially triggered a homicide investigation by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, with detectives probing the possibility of poisoning and focusing on a 45-year-old woman, Beatrice Wangari, identified as the last person with him before he collapsed at a residence in Kitengela.
A postmortem conducted on May 5 at Lee Funeral Home put those suspicions to rest, confirming that cardiac arrest linked to a pre-existing heart condition caused his death. On May 13, authorities released Wangari from custody after forensic and toxicological findings backed the autopsy’s conclusion that no foul play was involved.
The arrest that Sifuna confronted the IG about took place in March 2026, drawing swift and sharp condemnation from the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union. Authorities charged Dr. Obwaka with fraudulently procuring the registration of 334 individuals as members of the Kenya Hospital Association and failing to file mandatory financial and membership records.
The KMPDU and political leaders rallied to his defense, arguing that the charges covered administrative matters that typically fall under a company secretary’s responsibilities, not a board chairman’s. They maintained that the real motive behind the arrest was to settle a management dispute at Nairobi Hospital through political pressure rather than due process.
Dr. Obwaka died before that dispute reached any resolution. His memorial served as both a farewell to a distinguished medical career and a pointed reminder of the circumstances that shadowed his final months.
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