Nairobi slum dwellers deserve zero pity, they vote for drug dealers – Boniface

On January 23, 2006, a five-storey building collapsed in Nyamakima, downtown Nairobi killing 14 people. More than 280 construction workers were working inside the building.

Kenya did not have the machinery to rescue trapped survivors. A 140-member Israeli rescue team flew into the country overnight to assist with the rescue effort.

US Marines, Kenya Navy engineers and the British also joined in the rescue mission. It was big news across the world and international media camped at the site for days. 

The government took swift action; several Nairobi City Council officials, the contractor and the owner of the building were charged with 14 counts of manslaughter. They were never convicted.  

Since then, there have been frequent instances of buildings collapsing, due to poor engineering and construction, but the world no longer responds to help rescue survivors. People dying in collapsed buildings are now the norm in Kenya, in much the same way that ten people die in road accidents every day.

Shoddy buildings are approved by corrupt government officials who know that even if the building collapses there will be no consequences. Today, 3,000 unstable buildings are earmarked for demolitions in Nairobi.

 Someone approved the building plans, someone supervised the construction but no one in that chain of responsibility has been held accountable.

If you have been to Kayole, Komarock, Donholm, Ngumba, Zimmerman, Githurai — the areas where the so-called middle class live — you’ll find that they’re just glorified slums. The houses are so badly built that your lights have to be on day and night. Even when it’s hot outside, the houses are as cold as morgues.

The only trees that you will come across in those areas are dead, being sold as charcoal. Insecurity is rife - and killer cops, like Hessy, are celebrated as heroes - Hessy is part of a group of poorly paid police officers. 

Hessy, the middle class and those young criminals are all victims of bad governance. The middle class will protect corrupt leaders, because he or she is from their tribe, while demanding that mugging suspects be shot dead - muggers who steal because the corrupt leader’s theft has denied them the right to secure a decent job.

As someone who has been travelling outside Kenya since my early 20s - and l have been to many places - l can say with informed confidence that Nairobi is a big slum, not a city. l have lived in the lower slums of Majengo, Huruma and the upper slums of Hurlingham and Kilimani.

In both places, water supply isn’t guaranteed, sewers overflow, garbage collection is a private enterprise and security is provided by private security guards. The only time you hear a police car siren is when it’s escorting a big shot, not when responding to a citizen’s emergency.

The lower and upper slums have one thing in common; they have no pedestrian walks and, on the only space you can walk on, you have to compete with boda boda and dodge gaping manholes. A city where you cannot walk and cycle safely, on clearly designated paths, is just a slum.

I have a friend who is about 70 per cent blind and she has fallen in a ditch, been rammed by a matatu and a boda-boda. She values her independence and tries to live as normal a life as she can, but it’s hard for her.

Her job doesn’t pay well but because safety comes first, she has to use taxis - but while she was in London she lived normally, walked on the streets and used public transport.

Our city is hard enough to navigate for able-bodied people, but it’s a nightmare for those who have some physical disability, as well as for children who walk themselves to school. In this slum called Nairobi, its survival for the fittest, everyone for themselves and God for us all.

But Nairobi slum dwellers deserve zero pity because they’re the ones who vote for drug dealers and con men and women to represent them.