Donkeys with graffiti condemning rot in Kenyan parliament abandoned in Nairobi city centre

There was drama outside ICEA Building, Kenyatta Avenue in Nairobi’s CBD when five donkeys were found chained on a metal grill, with graffiti condemning corruption painted on them.

One of the five animals had also been painted in black and white colour to depict it as a zebra while the rest had red paint depicting bleeding.

They were chained on a metal grill next to the Kenyatta Avenue feeder road.

“Corruption is bleeding Kenya. Tumechoka (we are fed up),” read part of the graffiti on the donkeys.

Other writings were directed at Kenyan leaders.

Officials said the animals were chained there at about 5am by unknown people.

“We do not know who was behind it but they were spotted there at about 5am chained. We mobilized County officials who have taken them away,” said Edward Mwamburi, head of traffic in Nairobi.

A fire engine arrived at about 7.20am and unchained the animals by cutting the new padlocks that had been used to tie them up. County officials later drove the animals from the scene.

This is the second time that the animals are abandoned in the city centre. December 2014, there was similar drama outside I&M Building in Nairobi when a driver of a lorry abandoned 22 donkeys with graffiti tumechoka (we are fed up).

The driver said he had been hired by somebody to deliver the animals to the city centre.

On reaching at the junction of Kenyatta Avenue/ Muindi Mbingu Street, the man who had hired him allegedly jumped out of the lorry.

The driver told police that he also panicked and jumped out of the lorry briefly before he was traced.

A Naivasha businessman was later fined Sh3,000 for ferrying 16 donkeys and dumping them in Nairobi’s Central Business District.

Some of the donkeys had physical injuries, six of them were pushed out of the lorry and left to wonder along Muindi Mbingu Street.

More than 20 others were abandoned along Moi Avenue before they were driven away by police and County Government officials.

The animals on the lorry were driven with the escort of the county askaris while those along Moi Avenue were herded away.

They were meant to send a message that Kenyans are tired of rising cost of living and insecurity, one of the activists who were behind the incident said.