Daadab MP Farah Maalim recounted how a phone call from then-Speaker of the National Assembly Kenneth Marende saved his life on June 10, 2008. Maalim, who was then the Lagdera MP and deputy speaker, was supposed to accompany then-Minister for Roads Kipkalya Kones and Sotik MP Lorna Laboso on a flight that day.
On the morning of the trip, Marende called Maalim to inform him that he was occupied and needed him to chair the afternoon Parliament session. “At the last minute, Speaker Kenneth Marende called me and told me, ‘my brother I am very busy with something else, I want you to chair the afternoon session,'” Maalim recounted on TV47’s ‘Morning Cafe’ show on June 11. Maalim decided to abandon the trip to attend to his parliamentary duties, as he and Marende were the only two on the speakers’ panel.
Tragically, Kones and Laboso died when their plane crashed in the Kojong’a area in Narok, just 20 minutes after taking off from Wilson Airport, Nairobi. The crash also claimed the lives of the pilot and owner of the aircraft, Christoph Maria Schnerr, and the minister’s bodyguard, Kenneth Bett.
Maalim was presiding over the parliamentary session when Eugene Wamalwa informed him of the tragic news. “I was on the chair of the plenary in Parliament when Eugene Wamalwa walks to me and tells me, ‘have you heard the sad news?’, then he told me that Kipkalya Kones and Lorna Laboso are gone!”
Kenya has experienced several air disasters, including a military chopper crash in April 2024 that claimed the lives of Chief of Defence Forces Francis Ogolla and nine other military officers. Maalim attributed these tragedies to corruption, suggesting it as the root cause.
“We really need to examine this issue of plane crashes. A bit of it is due to the fact that we have these very old, and completely outdated aircrafts. Also, this is a result of endemic corruption in that sector. One area where there is no accountability is the military procurement sector. Because there is no accountability, we will end up getting substandard equipment — you know sometimes back we got second hand helicopters from Jordan which were refurbished and sold to us.”
