Kitui East Member of Parliament Nimrod Mbai was arrested on Wednesday, July 5, following an incident where he was caught on video assaulting a Kenya Power employee.
The legislator was apprehended in Mavoko, a day after he was captured in a viral video slapping the utility firm’s staff after they accused him of illegal connection to his Kitengela residence.
According to a police Occurrence Book (OB), the second-term MP was held at Kitengela Police Station and is set to be arraigned at Kajiado Law Courts.
“Today at around 0830hrs, a group of Kenya Power employees numbering about 30 from Kitengela Branch protested from their officers in EPZ to Kitengela Police Station against the above MP who assaulted one of them on July 3, 2023,” the OB report read in part.
“They demanded to know if the MP had been apprehended. They were assured that, indeed, the MP was arrested and availed in Court at Kajiado.
A separate source who spoke indicated that the MP surrendered to the police.
This also follows a Tuesday evening raid at his Kitengela home where police officers and Kenya Power staff recovered power cables and a metre box which the company says were used for an illegal connection to the national grid.
Earlier, the assaulted Kenya Power staff reported the incident to the Kitengela Police, with Isinya Sub-County Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) boss, Benjamin Ndebai, launching investigations into the matter.
In the incident captured on video, the MP lamented over the disconnection at his home, claiming that the utility firm was contravening President William Ruto’s directive.
While justifying his actions, Mbai claimed that residents in the area had stayed without power  for years until his intervention.
“President William Ruto ordered when you find electric power already installed, no one is allowed to remove the installed wires. All you need to do is install a metre,” the lawmaker stated.
Nonetheless, Kenya Power maintained that it would continue with the disconnection at the MP’s home owing to safety concerns.
“We will also pull down the entire power line. Such power lines are risky for the occupants of the house,” Peter Kathusia, an officer from the utility firm, asserted.
