In July 2023, a 37 year old Kenyan woman was arrested in Vietnam after airport authorities discovered two kilograms of cocaine in the suitcase she was travelling with. After facing trial for two years in the Asian country, Margaret Nduta was handed the death sentence on March 6th 2025. The story of Margaret Nduta has elicited mixed reactions from Kenyans, with many pleading leniency, requesting that she be extradited back to Kenya where she can serve a sentence. Indeed, the Kenyan government through the ministry of Foreign Affairs, hosted in the office of the Prime Cabinet Secretary, has indicated that it is lobbying for her to be given clemency by the Vietnamese government.
Many theories have been fronted, with the suspect saying that she was tricked by her travel agent who exchanged her bag and gave her the one with cocaine. Drug trafficking, under Vietnamese law, is punishable by death. However, it has also emerged that Nduta might have been paid a total of Ksh160,000 to smuggle the bag through the airport. Whether Nduta is guilty of drug trafficking is not ours to determine, as the case has been aptly judged by the Vietnamese court. Having been caught red-handed with the substance, it is undeniable that she is, in fact, guilty of the crime. How she came to be in possession of the drugs is neither here or there.
What we must understand is that laws in other countries work, unlike our own which are mere suggestions. Kenya has a protracted history of criminals evading justice in our legal system as the courts are easily compromised as long as one has a bit of money about them. The Kenyan public is also notorious for rewarding criminals and drug traffickers such as Nduta. Indeed, we have rewarded a remarkable number of such nefarious characters with elective posts and public service jobs. Every Kenyan government since Uhuru Kenyatta was elected president in 2013 has had a known drug lord in the cabinet, the current administration has two. We have had, and still have, known drug traffickers as governors, senators, MPs and MCAs. The current parliament has two murderers whose killings have been caught on camera and aired on national television. A current MP is on camera shooting a man on the neck; that MP is on track to becoming the next governor of Nairobi. Heck, a man who was sentenced to 67 years in prison in a Kenyan court is still an MP and sits in powerful parliamentary commissions.
So I say, let her hang. In Kenya Margaret Nduta is not a criminal, she is a hero. It is time Kenyans learn that their moral bankruptcy is not a norm, but a blight in human society.
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