Nakuru bursting at seams as hordes of merchants, thieves take over streets

By MICHAEL NJUGUNA

NAKURU; KENYA: The cacophony from shops blasting music, roaring tuk tuks, boda bodas (motorcycles) and countless hawkers announcing the prices of their wares sets your nerves on edge.

In some streets, the pavements and shop corridors have been taken over by the hawkers and public and private vehicles, leaving no room for pedestrians.

This is Nakuru town where streets are bursting with ever-increasing human and vehicular traffic.

Food vendors start preparing and serving cheap meals in the streets from sunup, but their business peaks at sundown when more charcoal braziers find their way in shop verandahs.

Thousands of people poured into the town during and after the 2007-2008 post-election violence leading to a population explosion hitherto unwitnessed. Many more people have been migrating to the town from the rural areas in search of jobs.

Many of the newcomers end up in the streets trying to eke out a living as hawkers and fruit vendors.

Others have taken up ‘farming’ where they grow flowers and tree seedlings off Geoffrey Kamau Way and Nakuru–Nairobi highway.

The area between the railway line and Oginga Odinga Road in Section 58 is being cleared to pave way for more tree seedlings and flower nurseries.

“Competition is very stiff, but sometimes we manage to get some money to buy food. My family consumes the sukuma wiki (kales) I am growing here,” says Julius Mogaka, a street farmer.

Livestock owners whose animals have been grazing in the spaces now being cleared by the farmers will soon have to seek alternative sources of livelihood or consider zero grazing.

Within the town centre and parts of the former municipality such as Free Area and Shabaab, hundreds of fruit vendors use wheelbarrows to carry loads of bananas, pineapples and other fruits from one street to another.

After toiling in the sun for hours, the vendors park their wheelbarrows in parking spaces meant for cars, worsening an already serious parking crisis in the central business district.

The town’s population has also experienced a surge because of increased student numbers attending universities and middle level colleges. Egerton, Kenyatta, JKUAT, Kenya Methodist, St Paul’s, Presbyterian Church of East Africa, Mount Kenya and Kabarak are some of the universities that have campuses in Nakuru.

The huge population has stretched everything to the limit. There is a shortage for residential houses are and people who own bungalows are converting them into guesthouses or hostels.

There is a big competition for passengers in the transport industry, particularly among the tuk tuk, boda boda and bicycles owners.

Matatus occupy every inch of the main bus terminus and some are now parking in streets such as Kenyatta lane.

Some traders have opted to pay seasonal fees to reserve parking areas outside their premises where guards stop desperate motorists from using the rented space.

Herbal explosion

Although chemist shops are mushrooming to meet the big demand for medicine, herbalists, including imposters, have spread their net wide in the town to cash in on the ailing poor. We counted several chemist shops within the CBD. 

There is, however, almost an equal number of people selling roots and powders said to be extracts from herbal plants, some allegedly imported from Tanzania.

“Some of these herbalists selling powders in the streets don’t know what they are actually dispensing. They sell you a powder to cure malaria today but if you go back another day for something to cure, say, chest pain, they will give you the same ‘malaria powder’,” said a woman who owns a kiosk near the bus station.

Nakuru town Strategic Plan for 2001 prepared by the then Nakuru Town Clerk AM Leina says the town had 110 private health clinics,  four hospitals, three health centres, five dispensaries and two nursing homes in 2007.

Recreation facilities such as the Lions and the Nyayo Gardens have been overwhelmed by numbers, depriving visitors the kind of rest they would like to enjoy.

As a result, some of the residents have opted for the spacious and well kept corridor between the Summit Resort and the Lake Nakuru National Park’s main gate.

Afraha Stadium which can hold 8,200 people is Nakuru town’s biggest sports ground. The facility is currently crying for a facelift.

The Rift Valley Sports Club, the Nakuru Golf Club and the Nakuru Athletic Club have sports grounds. The three are, however, private property.

Leina said in the plan document that the rapid urbanisation of Nakuru had led to a spillover of urban type activities and functions into the immediate rural agricultural surroundings.

These areas include Kiamunyi to the northwest, Engashura, Wanyororo, Kiamunyeki to the northeast, Kiambogo and Muguga to the east and Barut to the southwest.

Land in these areas has been subdivided into quarter acre plots, which have been sold to private developers.

Leina said acute congestion in the CBD had also led to a spillover of commercial activities along various strips and junctions near major roads such as the Nakuru–Nairobi highway.

“This concentration of commercial activities can be observed within residential areas and at major road junctions such as Race Course, Milimani, Maili Sita, Kagoto, Barut, Lanet Junction, Kunste and Stem junctions,” said Leina.

Leina observes in the document that the main industrial zone where most large-scale industries are placed is located in the Western side of the CBD but owing to the fast growth of the town in recent years, an industrial zone has developed in the Eastern side of the CBD where the Nakuru Blankets firm had been the main industrial plant.

The hospitality industry has also attracted a large number of investors and as a result many magnificent hotels and small food outlets have been built in the recent past.

The big population has also attracted as rare kind of pickpockets who hire matatus purely to enable them pick pockets of unsuspecting passengers.

I recently travelled in a matatu between the Eveready factory in the western side of the town and the old Uchumi Supermarket building in the CBD and lost some money.

The police said they are aware that pickpockets including some from Nairobi were hiring a matatu for, say, Sh5,000 per day, for the purpose of stealing from commuters.