Police in Kitui are investigating the gruesome murder of a Form Two student by unknown assailants, days after he won a Sh200,000 lottery from sports betting firm Betika.
Syengo Nyamai of Mavindini Day Mixed Secondary School is said to have won the lottery two weeks ago when he gambled in the 2023 Carabao Cup final match pitting Manchester United and Newcastle United. The match was played on February 26 at the Wembley Stadium in London, UK.
The 17-year-old boy was found murdered and his body dumped in a thicket a few kilometres from his rural home in Maliku area in Katulani district. He had been missing for several days.
According to his elder brother, Mr Munyithya Nyamai, Syengo had used a neighbour’s national identity card to register a Safaricom SIM card that he used to enrol for the lottery, but he did not tell his family he had won the Sh200,000.
“We knew he had a phone, but never bothered to establish which ID number he used to register his mobile line because he had not yet attained the age of acquiring his own national ID card,” said the brother.
Earlier, Syengo had asked his mother to get him transferred to a boarding school, saying he would help to pay the higher school fees, without giving further details.
Mr Nyamai said his brother told two of his close friends how he had won the lottery. He also told them he planned to travel the following week to see some friends who had invited him to Likoni in Mombasa County.
Syengo was last seen on the morning of Monday, February 27, when he left for school as usual, but he never arrived there.
He had spent the previous evening with the two young friends – who have now been detained by detectives investigating the case – at the local shopping centre, where they watched the Carabao Cup Final, and stayed together late into the night.
The family got alarmed when Syengo failed to return home in the evening on the second day, and upon checking, they were told he had not been to school.
“We reported to the area chief that the boy was missing because it wasn’t his nature to disappear without informing the parents,” his brother said.
