Strong hints of Bogonko Bosire come-back

Bogonko Bosire, the controversial blogger who disappeared without trace in September 2013, may be alive, after all. There has been new activity on his Facebook account, which had remained dormant since he disappeared nearly three years ago, with only friends posting farewell messages on his wall.

Today, August 10th at around 5:30pm  his Facebook account name mysteriously changed from his name, Bogonko Bosire, to Kenyaa E-News with a new profile picture of Maasai men, suggesting human action behind the scenes and a strong hint that he could be emerging from his hibernation.

Having remained dormant for three years, it is curious that someone could gain access and change the account name. Even more telling is the new name of the Account, Kenyaa E-News, which is in line with Bogonko Bosire’s blogging exploits. He ran Jack News blog which, too, disappeared soon after he went missing. His Twitter account remained active for some time after he had disappeared.

Bogonko, a sharp journalist who had a problem managing his drinking desires, rose to fame as a blogger for the Jubilee Coalition ahead of the 2013 general election. He was used to spread propaganda against opposition Cord, while drumming support for Uhuru Kenyatta and his team.

He thrived on publishing titillating tidbits on the high and the mighty and media personalities.

It appears he is resurfacing just in time for the Kenya election, giving credence to the line that he may have been asked to go under by some people in government to protect him from the people he maligned and defamed in the run-up to the elections. Incidentally, some journalists believed to have been closer to him post messages suggesting he is still alive, and wishing him well ‘wherever ‘ he is.

For more nearly three years, the first born son of Mzee David Bosire and his wife, has never been seen after disappearing just before terrorists hit Westgate. The circumstances of Bogonko’s disappearance on that Wednesday, September 18, 2013, remain fuzzy.

Some suggest that Bogonko might have rubbed someone the wrong way in his writings and got eliminated. Another school of thought spins that he was involved in the ICC cases and could have met his fate like some witnesses did. Bosire was known for his coverage of the International Criminal Court (ICC) case against President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto, which focused on alleged government involvement in post-election violence in 2007-08.

On October 8th, 2014 Kenyatta became the first head of state to appear before the court. On 5th December 2014, the ICC withdrew the charges against the Kenyan president saying that the Kenyan government had refused to hand over evidence vital to the case. Ruto charges were also dismissed this year.

Bosire was accused of exposing the identities of prosecution witnesses at the ICC and was considered an ally of President Uhuru Kenyatta because of the tone of his coverage. Since his disappearance, many rumors and conspiracy theories have circulated regarding what really happened to the blogger. Various rumors surrounding his fate have spread online. Some say he fled to the Democratic Republic of Congo. A few have even claimed that affiliates of the ICC have something to do with his disappearance.

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Yet the casual manner in which the family took the issue could point to a conspiracy to hide the journalist for reasons unknown to the public.

His brother, Elkana, says he heard from a cousin Bogonko had been living with in Nairobi’s South B area that the blogger had not communicated for two days. “It was highly unlike him,” Elkana said in an interview with the Standard last year. “I lived with him for five years and it was unlike him to leave for a long journey without informing me.”

Elkana said he immediately called Bogonko’s friend, Dennis Itumbi, who had been appointed director at the Presidential Strategic Communications Unit, who informed him that he had not seen Bogonko and he too was looking for him. “I always checked for his Jackal News updates on Facebook. Whenever there was a fresh one, I knew he was okay. But when I did not see one for a while, I knew there was a problem,” says Elkana.

State House connection

Itumbi, who worked closely with Bogonko during the campaign period, has never given a detailed account of what he knows about the disappearance of his friend and efforts to search for him. Two days after Bogonko disappeared, on September 21, 2013, Al Shabaab terrorists attacked Westgate Mall and killed 67 people.

The family says they visited mortuaries in case he was among the Westgate victims but they couldn’t find any clues.

Elkana filed a missing person’s report at Industrial Area Police Station but nothing came out of that. Two months after he disappeared, the family was informed of the body of a man who resembled Bogonko was at Naivasha District Hospital but they say the body was not his.

“My brother had broken teeth but the body had complete teeth. He was also better built than Bogonko,” says Elkana. Bogonko had bought a new Samsung Galaxy phone, which would have been easy to track.

However, Elkana’s efforts to get records of his brother’s last communications from Safaricom hit a snag.  “They told me the phone could not be traced and refused to release his phone records. We would have known whom he talked to last and it might have helped us trace him,” he says.

Elkana says he stopped pushing for answers when he suspected that somebody was listening to his phone calls.

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