Last Moments Of Student Killed In Zimmerman Escaping From Bodaboda Thugs

Bovine Ndemo, a 24-year-old who had just landed an internship with Kengen after completing his studies at the Technical University of Mombasa (TUM), was on Monday, February 20 killed by armed robbers in Mirema, Roysambu area, Nairobi.

Bovine had a dream of one day solving the problem of substandard household commodities through technology and had travelled to the capital city from Mombasa two weeks before he met his untimely demise.

He had just finished his studies in applied physics, electronics and instrumentation at TUM and had bid his family farewell to travel to Nairobi, not knowing that it was their last time to see him alive.

Bovine had come from his aunt’s place at Olympic Estate, Kibra, where he had lunch with his younger brother Calvince Ndemo, 20, and his cousins. He then bid them goodbye, saying he was going to fix his laptop and then head back to Mirema, the last meal he would have with his family.

Mirema Drive in Nairobi. /DAILY NATION

On Sunday, February 19, Bovine was walking back home with his friend Collins at 11 pm when they were stopped by a motorcycle with a rider and a pillion passenger right behind them.

Before they could register anything, Collins’ phone was snatched by one of the two men who accosted them and was left lying in a ditch with a bleeding eye and nose.

Not waiting to suffer the same fate as his friend, Bovine escaped and managed to evade the two gangsters, and upon determining that he had put a good distance between himself and the attackers, he slowed down.

He however felt a sharp pain pierce through his body. One of the criminals had given chase, and when he slowed down, had stabbed him in the back and fled alongside his accomplice without stealing anything from Bovine.

When Collins caught up with his friend, Bovine told him that he had been stabbed. Only then did he see blood trickling from his chest before Bovine collapsed in his arms.

Collins shouted for help, but the motorcycle riders in the area stared at the two hapless young men and did not come to their rescue despite pleas from Collins. A taxi driver passing through the area managed to intervene and together with Collins, he rushed Bovine to the nearby Neema Uhai Hospital.

“Bovine’s friend told me to rush to Neema Uhai Hospital, saying Bovine had been stabbed and was in a critical condition,” Bovine's aunt, Beatrice Anyango, told the Nation.

She called her relatives and together, they rushed to the hospital, but found their loved one, having gone into shock, had been moved to Mama Lucy Kibaki Hospital because it has Intensive Care Unit (ICU) equipment.

“The nurses who attended to him (at Neema Uhai) told us that he was still talking when he got to the hospital and even told them how he felt and which part hurt the most,” Anyango added.

Unfortunately, he never made it to the hospital. He went into massive shock and after 12 minutes of attempting resuscitation, the doctors pronounced him dead. The time was 2:39 am on Monday.

“This young man was the hope of his family. He was always jovial and always concerned with people’s welfare. At a young age, he solved a complex family issue when his uncles fought for ancestral land. He guided the mediation and they all stopped fighting. He was a visionary. I cannot believe he is gone,” she added.

Bovine was to graduate in July, having cleared his studies last November. His family members, alongside police officers from Kasarani, were the following evening patiently waiting for the post-mortem report at the Kenyatta University Funeral Home.

Kasarani Deputy Sub County Police Commander Purity Wahome confirmed police had received the report and were currently investigating the case with the aim of bringing the criminals to book.

On the evening of Sunday, February 12, the late Bovine visited Anyango, at her home, where he met his cousins as well as his younger brother, who is studying for a Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering at the University of Nairobi.

“We left the house together on that fateful Sunday afternoon and he told me he wanted to first look for a good shop to fix his laptop, which he used for online academic writing, then head to Mirema. I didn’t know this would be the last time I would be seeing him,” an emotional Calvince eulogised his elder brother who was his best friend and his great influence, a person he looked up to.

“I left them at home as I went with the house help to buy condiments at Toi market so that they could eat before he left. He called me around 5 pm and told me he had found a good dealer, but since I was at a prayer meeting, I asked him to call me later,” Anyango added.

Anyango recalled the wonderful week the young people spent at her house, revisiting a phone call on Tuesday (February 14) where even the children’s grandparents and Bovine’s mother, plus Anyango's other sister, were added to the call and they spoke for hours, a week before the tragedy.

Bovine, who had been nicknamed Modern Developer, had even promised to buy his grandfather a big house in Nairobi, where he and his brother Calvince, would take care of his every need. The young men also told their mother that they appreciated how much she had done for them and soon, they would wipe away her tears.

Their mother, living in Marani village, Kisii, has single-handedly raised them alongside their three younger siblings, a task that has proven very tough for the qualified teacher who has never held a permanent job since she graduated from college.