Controversial National Police Airwing Commandant Rogers Mbithi is now a marked man if the current allegations are anything to go by.
Strangely, the same year he joined the Airwing, several leaders, including the former Commissioner of Police Maj Gen Ali, escaped death narrowly when the MI-17 chopper crashed in Kapsabet.
Others who survived the crash included Assistant minister Orwa Ojode who later died in another police chopper crash, former Rift Valley PC Noor Hassan Noor and former Assistant Commissioner of Police Silas Mc’Opiyo.
In June 2012, Internal Security Minister Prof George Saitoti and his assistant minister Joshua Ojode together with four other police officers died in a police chopper crash in Ngong Forest.
On September 8, 2016, a Sh2.3 billion twin-turbine engine helicopter crashed at the National Youth Service facility in Ruaraka.
Three police officers and an engineer were injured.
Mbithi’s tenure has been astonishingly been renewed for a record four times despite being stained by claims of corruption and mismanagement that has seen the Police Airwing fleet depleted and virtually grounded and air crashes that cost the lives of a Cabinet minister, an assistant minister and several police officers.
Internal Affairs Unit (IAU) now wants Mbithi to be charged with a criminal offence of embezzling funds meant for Boni Forest operation.
Mbithi is said to be influential, something attributed in part to the fact that he had been the pilot for former Presidents Daniel arap Moi and Mwai Kibaki.
Mbithi had on April 2015 allowed the pilot of Cessna 208 to fly his daughter-in-law and her children from Mombasa, at a time when the country was grappling with a more urgent and serious matter of Garissa attack where four terrorists raided the Garissa University College and shot dead 147 people.
Strangely, former Interior Cabinet secretary the late Joseph Nkaiserry defended him aggressively even before any investigations were launched.
“What is his crime? If you are waiting for his blood to spill you will get tired. It will not be spilled?” he said.
Immediately, Commission on Administrative Justice (CAJ) undertook investigations into the allegations and concluded that the Airwing boss had “erred for allowing the aircraft to be used on personal mission”.
In addition, Ombudsman’s report found Mbithi culpable of abuse of power.
Mbithi, an Assistant Inspector General (AIG) is the second officer from the military to head the 70-year-old police Airwing.