By Juma Kwayera
Emille Martin had just alighted from a matatu at Afya Centre bus terminus on Tom Mboya Street, Nairobi, when five smartly dressed young men accosted him.
They ordered him to empty his pockets of his cell-phone, money and other valuables. When he hesitated, they threatened to kidnap and take him to a house in Korogocho slums. He complied.
Some two hundred metres away at OTC bus terminus, a college student is robbed of a laptop, cell phone and money, again by group of young men. At the same spot, a gang pounced on Hosea Mwalati, a senior security officer with the International Committee of the Red Cross.
When he tried to resist, one of them hit his trachea with a metal bar, causing a constriction in the throat that prevented him from breathing or calling for assistance.
The narrative of friendly and smartly dressed thugs roaming Nairobi CBD during the day and robbing city residents is all too familiar despite the crime spots being known. There has been no bold attempt to tame the vice.
The hotspots include Bus Station, Tusker on Ronald Ngala Road, Afya Centre, Railways, OTC, Old Nation Roundabout, Muthurwa and Tom Mboya Post Office bus terminuses.
From rough and rugged glue-inhaling hoodlums who attack their prey with knives, metal bars, guns or splash their targets with faeces, the new generation of gangsters are suave in speech, smartly dressed, do not snatch handbags or grab wallets. They invite their prey to give up valuables without starting a scuffle, far-removed from the glue-sniffing urchins of yesteryears.
Looked friendly
“I had just alighted from a matatu on my way to training when I was accosted by five people. They looked friendly. But before I realised they were gangsters, they had asked for my cell-phone, money and M-Pesa PIN number. I was ordered to avoid a scuffle. They took the phone, removed the sim cards and gave them back. All the while people standing nearby thought we were friends engaged in banter. Even the police and council askaris standing by did not realise a crime was unfolding before them,” says Martin, a rugby player for the Mt Kenya University team.
For Mwalati, his resistance led to his trachea being knocked while the upper lip was also ripped into two.
“It happened in broad daylight. The police manning the terminus realised too late that I had been robbed,” he says.
The style and timing of the crimes differ significantly from data in the Crime Observatory Report commissioned by Security Research and Information Centre with the support of the Government through the Kenya National Focal Point on Small Arms and UNDP published last week.
The execution differs from the research finding, which identified crime hotspots as far away of police stations or with “minimal or predictable police patrols and beats, mono exit and entry routes, bridges, canals, footpaths, traffic jams and dilapidated roads that force drivers to slow down, making them easy prey to criminals.”
The research found most crimes take place between 6pm and 3am.
It says: “These are the times people either return from work or leave for work early in the morning.”
A key trait about the “white collar” gangsters is their ability to disguise themselves as commuters. However, they have become permanent features at the terminuses where they waylay their prey. Commuter bus drivers and conductors who terminate their journeys in the CBD acknowledge the presence of the gangsters but would not bother informing the police on suspicion the criminals operate in cahoots with the law enforcers.
City gangs
“You can see they are there. Look at where the police are. They know these are criminals, but would not arrest them even if they found them committing a crime,” says Isaac Waweru, pointing to a group of young men at a corner at Bus Station, less than 100 metres from Afya Centre. Waweru who plies Route 43 says the gangsters are clients of rogue police officers and operate between Mang Hotel and Afya Centre.
An Assistant Commissioner of Police admitted that some of his colleagues perpetrate crime and blamed the top brass for failing to tame rogue officers.
“Nairobi police officers are indifferent to crime. They avoid committing themselves to anything. We also know there are many rotten apples. Some protect criminals at a fee and that is why crimes takes place under their nose,” he says.
Police spokesman Charles Owino concurs, but cites the absence of a foolproof system in which the police are made to account for their inaction in detecting and preventing crime.
“We do not have any report about the new phenomenon. Sometimes these things (reports) reach our officers, but they may not see the essence of recoding them. There are styles of administration in the police that need to change to make the officer accountable in combating crime. As things stand now, we are far from catching up with the new crime trends,” says Owino.
Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero says unemployment and police invisibility have interplayed to escalate crime, which can be reversed with “increased police visibility, enhanced youth employment, improved opportunities for dialogue to create and sustain interethnic peace and public rehabilitation programmes for reformed criminals.”
The SRIC report observes that the police are far from making a dent in crime levels. It makes a crucial observation though.
“It has generally been observed that crime evolves in tandem with an increase in literacy levels, technology, political transformation, social cultural dynamism and economic advancement,” it notes. It also cites, “a participatory gap in the crime intervention strategy to preserve the technological, political, social- cultural economic fabric against erosion by the effects of crime.”
Owino says the gap has been widening in the absence of effective and functional communication centres at district level, exacerbated by negative attitude. “We need facilities and people with the right levels of education and qualifications to transform the force into a noble profession responsive to the ever-changing crimes trends. It need not be a dumpsite for academic failures anymore,” explains Owino.
