By Stanley Ongwae
The chills of terror and torture at the hands of special government security agents remain fresh in Jimmy Achira’s mind.
As journalists across the globe mark World Press Freedom Day (May 3rd), Achira—a now-retired scribe—will also be marking 40 years since his unwarranted arrest, detention, arraignment, and questionable conviction on trumped-up charges of being a member of a proscribed movement.
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Those were the days when suspected anti-government individuals were arrested by the defunct Special Branch security agents and detained in the infamous Nyayo House torture chambers, where terror was routinely unleashed on them.
According to Achira, this was part of the price some journalists and civilians had to pay for appearing critical of the government of the day, led by the late President Daniel arap Moi.
Such were the pre-reform struggles as the country slowly advanced toward a freer press, as highlighted in his book, Mwakenya: Real or Phantom? A Journalist’s Harrowing Experiences in the Moi Regime, published by Nsemia Publishers.
As chronicled in the book, the dreaded Nyayo House torture chambers served as holding cells for suspects accused of alleged treason—charges that could easily be preferred against anyone perceived as a threat to the government.
Before his arrest on December 15, 1986, Achira was working as a correspondent for Nation Media Group in the larger Gusii Region.
He was among journalists who refused to be compromised or manipulated into reporting stories dictated by the State or its agents.
His incarceration followed a fundraiser he had organized to raise money for further studies at a university in Tanzania.
“The person who arrested me was a Special Branch officer who had even donated Sh100 during the harambee. He is the same person who had set me up before his seniors in Nairobi,” Achira says.
He was arrested and taken to his house in Oyugis Town, where he was allowed to bid farewell to his wife and two children.
“My family knew I had been arrested, but they could not tell where I had been taken,” he recalls.
In the trumped-up charges, authorities accused Achira of conspiring with anti-government elements to overthrow the government.
The fundraiser had been attended by former Kitutu Masaba MP Abuya Abuya, former Wundanyi MP Mwashenga wa Mwachovya, former Gusii County Council Chairman Stanley Ongwae, and the late Henry Obwocha, then Chief Accountant at the Pyrethrum Board of Kenya, among other senior government officials.
But as his fate was later sealed by Special Branch senior superintendent James Opiyo, Achira never made it to Tanzania until two years later, after completing his prison sentence at Kamiti Maximum Prison.
Sleeping on waterlogged cell floors, enduring constant physical and emotional abuse, starvation, stripping, body-shaming, and torture using both sharp objects and blunt force were only part of the horrors detainees faced.
Achira was held incommunicado for 45 days in the Nyayo House torture chambers while undergoing brutal interrogation over alleged involvement in what he describes as a ghost anti-government movement called Mwakenya.
Before his trial, he says security agents forced him to accept subversion charges as a condition for release.
“In fact, I had no say over it because they had already prepared written submissions of my forced acceptance of the charges. Mine was just to cooperate by affirming them before Chief Magistrate H.H. Bush, who then sentenced me to two years in jail,” he says.
After serving his sentence, Achira returned to Nation Media Group before eventually crossing over to Tanzania, where he completed his undergraduate studies in Media and Communication at St. Augustine University of Tanzania.
Reprieve came much later when he, alongside other Nyayo House torture victims, successfully sued the government for wrongful detention and torture.
Now 69, Achira says Kenya’s media environment is still not as free as it should be, though significant progress has been made.
“The president and his operatives know that by crippling media institutions financially, they can take control. But one thing they will never control is the ever-growing social media space,” he says.
He cites the rise of social media, liberalization of airwaves, and pro-media laws as major milestones in strengthening press freedom.
Currently, Achira is partnering with former Nation Media Group Business Editor Andrea Morara as Managing Editor and Editor-in-Chief respectively of Gusii Chronicle, a regional publication founded a few years ago.
The veteran journalist is also engaged in private media consultancy and is working on several publications, including his memoirs and a collection of infamous sedition court cases during the Moi-KANU regime.
For Achira, World Press Freedom Day is not just a commemoration—it is a reminder of the painful price many paid so future generations could write freely.
