By Hope Barbra
In a shocking incident, a university don, Prof. Thomas Tonny Onyango Mboya, was on Tuesday morning brutally murdered in his Waware village, Suba North Sub-county, following a land dispute.
Prof. Mboya, who was an Associate Professor and Director of the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the Technical University of Kenya (TUK), was attacked while erecting beacons on the disputed parcel of land.
According to witnesses, the assailant, who had allegedly encroached and built on the contested property, became enraged after a court ruling directed him to demolish his structures. Instead of complying, he reportedly stormed the site armed with a panga, beheading Prof. Mboya before turning on his father.
Mboya’s father suffered deep panga cuts during the attack and is currently fighting for his life at a hospital in Homa Bay County. The suspect fled the scene after residents raised alarm, narrowly escaping a mob that pursued him.
Suba North MP Millie Odhiambo strongly condemned the incident, urging police to move swiftly and apprehend the suspect.
“The murder of Professor Thomas Mboya of Rusinga Island is unfortunate. Violence never sorts out issues. May the killer and any persons who may have aided or abetted in his death be brought to book,” she wrote on her Facebook page.
Prof. Mboya was widely respected in academic circles. Born in 1970, he completed his O-Level education (KCE) at Kokuro Secondary School in 1987 before joining Homa Bay High School for his A-Level studies in 1989. He later pursued a Bachelor of Education (Science) degree at Egerton University, graduating in 1993.
In 1994, he began his teaching career under the Teachers Service Commission (TSC). Three years later, he took study leave to pursue a Master of Science degree in Mathematics at the University of Nairobi, graduating in 1999.
Afterward, he returned to teaching before joining the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA) in 2002 as a lecturer. In 2005, he proceeded to the United Kingdom, where he earned his PhD in Inverse and Ill-posed Problems from the University of Leeds in 2008.
Between 2009 and 2012, he resumed teaching at CUEA before moving to the Technical University of Kenya in March 2012 as a Senior Lecturer and Chair of the Department of Statistics and Computational Mathematics. From February 2013 to January 2016, he served as the Head of the Department of Industrial and Engineering Mathematics.
Until his untimely death, Prof. Mboya was serving as the Director of the School of Mathematics and Statistics at TUK, leaving behind a legacy of excellence in academia and research.
