Nyakera Accuses Interior PS Omollo of Orchestrating Predawn Raid on His Kisumu Hotel in Bid to Seize Sh235m Property

A PREDAWN raid on a lakeside hotel in Kisumu has ignited a high-voltage political and business dispute, with former Principal Secretary and Democracy for Citizens Party (DCP) patron Irungu Nyakera squarely accusing Interior PS Dr Raymond Omollo of masterminding what he calls a hostile takeover of his Sh235 million investment.

Nyakera, who built a reputation as a no-nonsense technocrat before aligning himself with former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua and the opposition, says that at around 5am on Tuesday, more than 100 men stormed his hotel, damaging property and assaulting members of staff, including tying up a female security guard who was on duty at the time.

Nyakera says he rushed to the scene and fired two warning shots into the air before the attackers fled.

“I called the OCS and asked for backup, but an hour later, when no backup was forthcoming, I sent him a message that I intend to shoot anyone stepping into my property,” Nyakera said in a statement published on his social media accounts, adding that he hoped the OCS had shared the warning through the relevant security communication channels.

Nyakera Irungu.

The incident is not the first of its kind. Nyakera says that three weeks prior, goons working alongside the Lake Basin Development Authority (LBDA) arrived at the premises, carted away merchandise belonging to his business and locked him out. He says he subsequently reported the matter to Kisumu security agencies, where officials told him something that now forms the centrepiece of his allegations against the Interior PS.

“Upon reporting the matter to the security agencies in Kisumu, I was informed that PS Raymond Omollo had directed that I cannot continue being a tenant in a government building because I am in DCP,” Nyakera said.

He went further, claiming that the Nyanza Region DCI boss told him that PS Omollo has personal interests in the property, a claim that Nyakera said made perfect sense given that Omollo is a former Chief Executive of LBDA, the state agency that owns the premises, and that Omollo’s cousin currently serves as LBDA’s chief executive.

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LBDA is a regional development authority established by Parliament in 1979 under Cap 442 to coordinate and implement development programmes across 18 counties in the Lake Victoria basin region, with its headquarters in Kisumu.

Dr Omollo served as its Managing Director from 2019 before being appointed Principal Secretary for Internal Security and National Administration in December 2022 by President William Ruto, making him one of the most powerful civil servants in the country and the youngest person ever to hold that office.

A Nation investigation published in February 2023 had earlier linked Omollo, while at LBDA, to an alleged scheme in which retrenched employees were denied benefits worth at least Sh100 million through fictitious court processes involving a string of lawyers. Omollo denied any knowledge of or involvement in the alleged fraudulent arrangement at the time.

Nyakera, who has invested in the LBDA-owned premises since 2019, says he holds a 50-year lease on the property and that court records confirm he has sunk more than Sh235 million into developing what was a shell when he took it over. He was blunt in his message to the PS.

“If he indeed wants to take over the property, let him come and we do a valuation and I sell it to him. Sending goons here, chanting ‘hatutaki Mkikuyu,’ will not drive me away. I am an investor, but I am not stupid,” Nyakera said, using language that raises the spectre of ethnic targeting in what he frames as a politically motivated campaign of intimidation.

The ethnic dimension of the alleged chants adds a volatile layer to an already combustible standoff. Nyakera, who hails from Murang’a in Central Kenya, is a prominent critic of the Ruto administration and a key organiser for Gachagua’s DCP in Nairobi, where he is the party’s patron and an aspirant for the Nairobi governorship in the 2027 elections. He had previously served on state boards, including as chairman of KEMSA and KICC, before President Ruto revoked both appointments, moves Nyakera has attributed to his refusal to dissolve his political affiliations.

Kenya Insights sought a response from Dr Omollo’s office and the Interior Ministry regarding the allegations but had not received a statement by the time of going to press.

The LBDA communications office also did not respond to queries on whether it had authorised any action against Nyakera’s tenancy or whether any formal eviction proceedings had been initiated.

If Nyakera’s account is accurate, it raises serious governance questions.

The Interior PS not only oversees national security and law enforcement coordination across Kenya, but also sits on the board of the Communications Authority of Kenya.

An allegation that a serving PS is directing a parastatal over which he previously held executive authority to act against a political opponent, and that security agencies are declining to respond to distress calls from that opponent, strikes at the heart of Kenya’s constitutional guarantees of equality before the law and protection of property rights.

Political observers will note that the timing is not incidental. Nyakera has become one of the more vocal and visible faces of the DCP opposition project, lending financial credibility and policy weight to Gachagua’s platform. His public profile has grown sharply since his sacking from the KICC board in April 2025, which he described at the time as a badge of honour. That trajectory, from government insider to opposition irritant, appears to have attracted consequences that now extend beyond the political arena and into his business affairs.

For now, Nyakera says he is not going anywhere. His message to those behind the raids was unambiguous: come with a valuation, not with goons.

In a second statement published hours after the attack, Nyakera appeared to validate a recent Standard Media Group investigation into the security situation in Kisumu under PS Omollo’s watch, and issued a stark warning to the investor community.

“Standard Media was right. PS Raymond Omollo has turned Kisumu into goons territory. The chants of ‘Hatutaki wakikuyu’ cut deep for me after all the investments I have made. Anyone from outside Nyanza planning to invest in Kisumu, hold off till the security situation here improves. It’s 2007 all over again.”

The 2007 reference will send a chill through anyone who lived through Kenya’s post-election violence, which claimed over 1,300 lives and displaced more than 600,000 people, with Kisumu and the Lake Region among the worst-affected areas.

Nyakera is not alleging that organised political violence of that scale is imminent, but his invocation of that period as a frame for the current security climate in Kisumu is a measure of how seriously he regards the threat he says he and his staff now face.

His investor warning carries its own economic weight. Kisumu is the third-largest city in Kenya and has in recent years positioned itself as a regional hub for trade with Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo through the Northern Corridor and the LAPSSET development framework.

An allegation by a prominent businessman that the county has become unsafe for non-Nyanza investors, made in the context of ethnically charged attacks and alleged state complicity, will not be ignored by the business community or by development finance institutions with exposure in the region.

PS Omollo’s office, the Interior Ministry, LBDA and the Kisumu County Commissioner had not responded to media requests for comment by the time of publication.