Bring back the kipande and kick idlers out of the city

I hear Nairobi is ringed by military bases because the ‘wabeberu’ were frightened that Mau Mau braves would launch daring attacks on the capital city using homemade guns and Somali swords.

I also gather that in the good old days, ‘natives,’ as bloody Africans were called, were not allowed to venture out of ‘reserves’ and go wandering around the city ‘ovyo ovyo’. You needed to have proof of gainful employment, meaning you were a servant for some colonial master, whereupon you would be issued with a pass.

Remember you needed a kipande, too, a humongous ID that you dangled around your neck like a runaway cow. This kipande showed your details, specifically your village of birth and employment status.

Thus, if you were found loitering in Nairobi when your kipande clearly stated that you were not employed, cops declared you a vagabond, hurled you onto the back of a police lorry and sent you packing to the village.

It is on record that our forebearers were so pissed off with dangling kipande around their necks that it is one of the reasons they  sharpened machetes to fight for uhuru. But I am beginning to think that maybe we need this kipande thing back.

Recently, I alighted from a matatu in the city centre and found a massive crowd near the Ambassador bus stop. Ever the nosy journalist, I inched forward to sniff what was going on.

Approximately 250 people were massed together in a circle in the middle of which stood a hysterical woman prancing around like she was Shaka Zulu.

“This medicine, you mix it with water in a glass and drink. Baas... Your problems will be over, your manhood will be restored...” she screeched.

I craned my neck to catch this purveyor of power aphrodisiacs, noted her fornicating and disheveled army of rapt listeners, and sighed.

You want to tell me that 250 people left their houses and travelled to the city centre for no reason other than to seek medicinal herbs to cure their dipping manhood – on a working day?

That particular spot is notorious for that sort of thing. If there isn’t a street comedian cracking ‘native’ jokes, there will be an artist talking to snakes. If it is not Gor Mahia fans doing gymnastics around the statue of Tom Mboya, it is a street preacher yelling to himself.

Let’s be frank here. There are simply too many people walking around Nairobi doing nothing. Crowds gather at Ambassador from as early as 6am and remain standing till 8pm.

There are people in city estates who start sunning themselves at 8am and spend the rest of the day watching pirated flicks, walking up down dusty streets and yawning from worn benches beside kiosks.

Maybe we need the kipande back. The guy talking to snakes can as well do it in the village. The street preacher yelling at the wind can as well do so from his hut in Kanyam-Kago.

And next time I hear someone talking about ‘increasing’ manhood, I will have a fit. This idiotic city is already too heavily populated as it is.