Mike Mugo: Wordsmith Behind Once Captivating DCI Narrations Tells It All

I was born and raised in the cold highlands of Molo. My father was a clerk at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) now KARLO.

At such a young age I didn’t know what I wanted to do in the future, though I must admit that I had a passion for reading English text and practicing good grammar using a certain book titled English Aid. My passion for reading English storybooks only became better.

Back home during the holidays, I would raid my father’s collection of novels where I came across thriller writers such as James Hadley Chase, Sidney Sheldon and Raymond Chandler.

As I would later learn while in high school, my interaction with these literary works greatly influenced my choice of Journalism as the career that I wished to pursue later in life.

I am a graduate of Communication and Journalism from Moi University. I also hold a diploma in Mass Communication from the former Kenya College of Communications Technology, currently the Multi Media University of Kenya.

Are you living your dreams now?

Well, I would say that my choice to study Journalism was the best decision I ever made. It shaped me into the person I am today and opened many doors of opportunities, which I took advantage of.

It is as a result of this background and the networks that I built that assisted me to transition from the police when things started heading south, to where I am right now.

Tell us about your journey in the police service and how you landed at DCI?

I had never imagined that I would one day become a police officer but as fate would have it, I found myself training as a recruit constable in Kiganjo 6 years after working as a Public Communications officer.

But as it later turned out, this is one of the best decisions that I ever made in my life.

It all began one morning at the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting where I had been posted in a nondescript unit, following the disbandment of the Government Spokesman’s Office in early 2014. I had stayed in that office for months without a desk and nobody appeared bothered whether I actually reported for work or not.

Then one morning, I received a letter saying that I had been transferred to the Inspector General’s office where I would offer the services of a public communications officer. Within one hour, I had reported.

By the time I walked into Mr. David Kimaiyo’s office later that evening wearing a crisp poplin suit and a matching polka dot tie, I left no doubt in anyone’s mind that I was the man for the job. I wasted no time in narrating my brief but rich CV. Immediately I mentioned that I had had a stint at the Presidential Press Service and worked at the Government Spokesman’s office, he responded that I was the man he was looking for. Mr Kimaiyo had been the Presidential escort commander at one point and he must have grasped a thing or two about those serious press men who carried big cameras and covered the daily activities of the head of state and his deputy.

It was while working at the Inspector General’s office that I realized that after all the police were a well-organized juggernaut that had unfortunately suffered from years of mistrust from the public due to a lack of a structured communication policy.

Though historical factors on the conduct of police could have informed this perception, lack of a clear understanding of the police had reinforced this position.

However, it became extremely difficult for me as a civilian staff to comprehend how police officers discharged their duties, understand the Service Standing Orders (SSO) that guided the day-to-day management of the service and most critically to win the trust and confidence of the officers in order to communicate efficiently and effectively on police matters.

This is how I made the painful but most rewarding decision of my life and joined the police service at the age of 29 years. It was not easy training with 18-year-old lads who had been recruited straight from high school and whose blood was boiling in their veins.

Well, that is how I joined the police and after my passing out parade 9 months later, I was posted to the inspector general’s office as a communications specialist.

I returned to Jogoo House a policeman and met Mr George Kinoti, who had been appointed the police spokesman. Together with another constable Martin Mwangi and a civilian communications specialist who had also been sent from the Ministry of Information, we successfully established the Directorate of Corporate Communications and Public Affairs at the National Police Service headquarters.

It is during this time that the Twitter, Facebook and YouTube pages for the NPS were established, with Mwangi being the Admin while I assisted in developing the content. We had a lot to report on especially on the war against terrorism and violent extremism, at the height of frequent terror attacks from the Al-Shabab terror network that had reared its ugly head in the country threatening the nation’s national security.

We were also engaged in sensitizing the public on the ongoing police reforms and modernization programmes in order to portray the service as a responsible institution that was responsive to the security needs and requirements of the public.

Since its establishment at the turn of the 20th century, the Kenya police had no known structured communication policy. This led the police to be viewed as an organization which was not only closed to the public but which was also indifferent.

In order to ensure that we communicated in a structured manner, a multi-sectorial technical working group that included experts from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime was formed to come up with a communication strategy that would enhance collaboration between the public and police for effective policing.

It is this key document developed under the police reforms agenda that guided me throughout my tour of duty at the police service until my recent exit. 

Later, Mr Kinoti was appointed the Director of Criminal Investigations and we carried on with the work when Mr Charles Owino was appointed his successor.

Three years later upon promotion to the rank of inspector of police, I received my transfer to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.

By the time I left the national police headquarters at Jogoo House A, in December 2019, a fully functional communications directorate that I had helped establish from scratch, was already in place. Its Twitter account boasted a following of over 700K followers.

But most importantly, we had succeeded in introducing to Kenyans and documenting the transformation journey that the police service was undergoing from a force to a people-centered police service. That is well documented.

You were the mastermind of the most captivating DCI narrations. Tell us about that.

I only had one objective, to enhance the identity and image of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations through a robust and proactive communication strategy.

The DCI Director had one evening directed me to take over as the Communications Chief and report to him directly on all matters regarding communication in the Directorate.

Being an Inspector of Police while a majority of other heads of Units and departments were above the rank of Police Commissioner, this was a vote of confidence in me, coming from a man who had on various occasions declared that when he needed a job done he didn’t care about the rank the officer he had assigned, so long as he/she delivered to his expectations.

I had worked closely with Kinoti, when he was the police spokesman and had learnt how he wanted his things done. He was a fearless hands-on crime buster, who had developed thick skin hunting down criminals in various parts of the country. Behind the scenes, he was a meticulous planner and cunning as fox. 

It was therefore easy for me to align the performance of my team with his vision and in a month, the results had started to be felt.

My team and I began with conducting research to determine and understand who our audience was in order to ensure that our content was engaging, useful and achieved the desired impact.

Our research further established that close to 70% of arrested persons in a given day were between the ages of 15-40 indicating that the younger generation was the most affected by crime. It is upon this realization that we established that the manner in which we communicated was less effective and did not appeal to our audience.

Government communication is known to be bureaucratic and old school yet the audience we were communicating to was the youthful population that has a preferred way of communicating, through a mixture of English, Swahili and slang.

This necessitated a change in the manner in which we tailored our messages specifically on social media, for the messages to have the desired impact and attract feedback from the public.

The results were phenomenal since in one year, the number of our active followers on X alone increased from 700,000 to over 1.2 million. Our level of engagement with members of the public also grew exponentially leading to improved public confidence and trust from the public. Today, the Directorate boasts of one of the most robust online communication platforms with a following of over 1.6 million active followers on X and over 3 million on Facebook. Our ultimate goal was to hit 5 million active subscribers on X in five years.

With the improved interaction with members of the public, we received a lot of information regarding crime and shared it with our counterparts at the Crime Research and Intelligence Bureau and other relevant units that acted expeditiously to protect lives and property. This is how gangs such as the infamous Katombi gang that had made the lives of city residents living in eastlands unbearable, were eliminated.

In a short period of time we had not only won the hearts and minds of the youthful population that we had initially targeted but had also attracted the attention of local and international media outlets that trooped to our headquarters to tell our story to the world. Some of the news organizations that interviewed my team included the U.S.-based Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and TRT World from Turkey. Our narratives attracted headlines far and wide including on CNN, BBC and Aljazeera.

I also received requests from some government agencies and corporate bodies to train their officers on our style of communicating which we did. On three occasions, I received job offers from organizations that had initially assumed that DCI had contracted a public relations firm to manage its image and when I responded that my team was comprised of police officers, they couldn’t believe it.

A communications executive from one of the county’s top agencies whose image was in a state of disrepair had twice been to my office with a job offer which I turned down since DCI was the place to be then.

I also didn’t know how I would approach Kinoti with news that I had a new job offer, yet he had given my team all the support that we needed to perform. Though he had on various occasions encouraged us to take advantage of any opportunities that came our way, I couldn’t master the courage.

What was your motivation in writing such captivating narrations?

When I arrived at DCI from Jogoo house, I realized that the Directorate was the biggest and only source of investigative news in the country.

This was reinforced by the fact that everyday teams of detectives from various units were engaged in unraveling the authors of different crimes from all corners of the country. The crimes included homicides, cybercrimes, economic crimes, and terrorism among others.

The sheer level of professionalism employed by the experts especially from the homicide unit whose cases secure over 80% conviction rate mesmerized me. I became determined to tell the DCI story rather than have media houses narrate them on our behalf. I therefore became motivated to sustain a platform where such material would be published in a much more pleasant manner to attract the audience to read and appreciate the work done by detectives.

This strategy worked as media houses would pick information verbatim as posted on the platforms and publish for their audiences to read. The overwhelming feedback that we received motivated my team to work much smarter.

I assigned my team of officers into shifts and we began working on a 24-hour basis to ensure that every security related piece of information that was of public interest was received and communicated expeditiously.

Within no time, we were basking in international glory and became an authority in communication. Investigation officers from all over the country began calling my office with cases they had worked on successfully and we published those that merited.

Corporate giants from Mobile telecommunication networks, the banking industry and manufacturing sectors among others began sponsoring our activities and publications. Foreign missions including the U.S and U.K embassies also partnered with us in a number of programs especially on media campaigns on counterterrorism and violent extremism.

I would say that my educational background as a journalist and most importantly the experience I had acquired at the government spokesman’s office really assisted me in mastering the art of developing and packaging information in an attractive manner, for specific audiences.

I had also learnt from my news-writing lecturer Mr R.K Ndirango that a good journalist read everything that came his way. From the Bible to the Koran, the newspapers to kamasutra.  That is how I mastered the art of chewing words like yam.

How did you feel every time your stories captured the attention of the country?

The feeling was very rewarding not only for my boss and the officers working under me but also the Directorate as a whole. It was a moment of pride for DCI and its staff most of whom were happy that the public was appreciating their work. Most officers in the service wanted to be a sleuth.

One of the parking boys at DCI who cleaned my jalopy was an avid reader of our Facebook page and he kept asking me who the admin of the page was because it was rumoured that he was from my office.  If I needed to know how we were fairing online, I would ask him the level of impunity in the previous night’s story and he would give me an honest assessment.

The positive feedback we also received from the public was overwhelming with some teachers saying they were using the content to teach essay writing skills in their schools.

Our style also attracted our police communication counterparts from Uganda and Rwanda whom I had met at a cyber security forum in Kigali and they had expressed interest in partnering with my team for an exchange programme.

I must however state that managing the Communication unit at that time was not an 8-5 job. I spent most of my time in the office including on weekends working on stories and beating other administrative deadlines.

What was the response from your bosses?

The reason we achieved success was because the DCI chief not only approved the new style of messaging but also assisted in crafting some of the messages himself.

Occasionally, we made mistakes but he appreciated that just like newspapers would err in their reporting and issue an apology in subsequent publications, we were also humans and therefore not perfect.

Initially, some senior officers were uncomfortable with the style saying that we could not depart from the old school police occurrence book reporting, but over time, they became convinced that times had changed. Nobody would read OB reporting unless we were doing it just to earn a salary.

From Mr Kinoti’s experience as spokesman, he was fully aware that the easiest way to kill communication in an organization was making it bureaucratic, that is why he directed that I report to him directly and not through the usual chain of command. This ensured that information was relayed fast, decisions were made promptly and unnecessary gatekeeping was eliminated.

As I prepared his final brief moments before he left office, he had expressed his fears to me that he did not think it would be business as usual at the communications unit after his departure.

And his prophecy came to pass when after his departure I would attempt to provide solutions through examples that had worked before, only to be met with responses such as I had hangovers from the Kinoti regime. At this point, I knew my time at DCI was up. 

Did you have a team behind you?

I give all credit for the work that we did to a very dedicated team of police detectives who spared no effort in ensuring that we achieved our objective.

To achieve this, I recruited a team of police graduates in diverse communication fields and convinced the DCI Chief to sponsor them to short courses at the Kenya Institute of Mass Communication. These and other courses that they undertook sharpened their communication skills and abilities, making the team one of the most motivated in the entire service. All the relevant equipment that they required to perform their tasks including professional cameras, drones and sound equipment among others were provided.

We then subdivided ourselves into sections depending on our strengths and within a short time, I had a small newsroom complete with reporters, photographers, videographers, and a graphics designer. I also had a technician and masters of ceremony. Then I was the bureau chief deputized by the ever-cunning Jonah Kimani.

The officers would get materials from the field, develop copies and forward them to my colleague Jonah or me for editing before publishing. It was that seamless.

Our work was not only limited to generating material for X and Facebook. We were also engaged in the management of the Directorate’s day-to-day communication function. This included providing media coverage for all activities and functions, producing the Directorate’s quarterly magazine, overseeing the preparation of exhibitions and ensuring appropriate branding and visibility of the Directorate among other functions.

It is during my tenure that we rebranded the majestic entrance to the Directorate from the gate all the way to the national forensic laboratory, and oversaw the media campaign that preceded the successful inauguration of the laboratory. 

How would you rate your stint at the DCI department?

I must admit that in my 15-year career in the public service, my stint at DCI was the best and most rewarding. Unlike in other services, the Directorate is a closely-knit agency comprising of highly skilled experts in various investigative fields.

Even though the Directorate comprises police detectives from across all ranks, I really admired how junior and senior detectives worked in harmony irrespective of their ranks to solve crime puzzles. The teams of professionals at  DCI have the capacity and technical capability to resolve any crime and that is a fact Kenyans should be really proud of.

However, in the business of fighting crime, there are many risks involved and due to the nature of duties that I undertook in exposing criminals and their activities, I knew I wasn’t in everyone’s good books.

On various occasions, threats would come when we published information that rubbed some individuals the wrong way, especially in the fight against economic crimes and money laundering. I received midnight calls by suspects who wanted information related to their criminal activities expunged from our platforms. I stuck to my guns as I was always assured of support from my boss so long as the information was accurate. But towards my exit, I wasn’t sure whether the support was guaranteed.

Why did you leave? And where are you now?

By the time I handed in my notice of resignation on January 17, I was convinced that I had given my best and reached the peak of my performance at DCI.

There was nothing more left for me to achieve than I had already done in the less than 3 years that I had served as DCI’s communications chief.

I was content with my achievements and though I did not rise to become the police spokesperson, which was my ultimate goal, I was convinced that the work I did at DCI was much more than I would have done had I waited for years to become spokesman.

Lastly, I had learnt from the best in leaving when at the peak of one’s performance.

Right now I am enjoying my leave before making my next move which I will let you know. Since 2016, I had only proceeded on annual leave once, last year. I realized how my young boys were excited with me at home and after being with them for one whole week they began asking whether I was no longer going to the city for work.

Since they were born they had not seen me home for that long. This saddened me as I realized that I had dedicated all my life to my work and given little time to my family, which I now intend to change in my next assignment.

Do you feel things have changed since you left?

Of course things have changed but maybe that is how they want to manage their reports. Everyone has their style of doing things.

That is not for me to judge since I no longer work at DCI. However, had I been the person on the communications desk today and you posed this question, it would be a time for serious retrospection.

Should Kenyans expect to see/read your work elsewhere or a comeback at DCI?

I am extremely grateful for the opportunity I was accorded to serve my country.I urge the public to continue supporting not only the DCI but all security agencies in the country since security is everyone’s collective responsibility.

I definitely will not be making a comeback at DCI as I am currently engaged in other life’s interests.

But I wouldn’t mind dropping a juicy story there once in a while, for old memory’s sake!