The cells at Central Police Station at the heart of Nairobi’s CBD have played host to a Presidential candidate arrested on Saturday after trying to commit suicide.
Independent candidate for Presidency Mr. Solomon Gichira attempted to take away his life on Saturday.
Gichira is said to have visited IEBC offices at Anniversary Towers on Saturday to check on the progress of his bid but went berserk after finding out that he had been rejected.
He broke a window pane on the 6th floor and attempted to jump off but was rescued by two police officers who arrived at the scene in time.
He was later taken to Central Police Station and is expected to be arraigned in Court on Monday to face charges of attempted suicide and malicious damage of property.
Central OCPD Robinson Thuku told Daily Nation that they have denied him cash bail as he may try to take away his life.
Gichira’s family and his running mate Kelly Watima have been camping at the station trying to push for his release on bail.
Watima said that IEBC has been harassing Gichira since he announced his candidature for The Presidency.
First, he said, IEBC rejected his bid after presenting his papers and they forced him to seek approval for his symbol from the registrar of political parties.
Then, they also rejected his running mate again forcing him to return to the registrar of political parties’ office to get approval.
And last week when he presented his signatures to the commission, they were rejected on grounds they were not in Microsoft Excel format.
But his campaign manager David Muriuki said that Gichira never tried to commit suicide and that the story was a fabrication of the police so that he is locked out from presenting his nomination papers and ultimately out of the race.
Muriuki explained that he was arrested after declaring he will present his nomination papers despite not having been cleared.
This was occasioned by a many hours delay by the commission on Saturday before they attended to him according to his campaign manager.