Who is killing boda boda riders?

The boda boda business is now a popular mode of transport, but it has turned into a death trap for riders in Kakamega County.

Reports indicate that at least 15 riders have been killed and their motorcycles stolen, particularly in Lugari, Matete and Likuyani Sub-counties in the last six months.

At least 70 boda boda operators are survivors of the brutal attacks where the assailants target those with new motorcycles.

Most of those killed leave behind young widows who struggle to raise the children alone.

Grabbed neck

However, the perpetrators of the rising criminal activities are never traced after their heinous acts. The riders have now turned the heat on the police, accusing them of abetting crime instead of maintaining law and order.

Moses Wafula is a boda boda rider at Lwandeti junction. Two months ago, a customer boarded his motorcycle at around 11am en route to Lumakanda. Wafula says the passenger directed him towards a deserted path after they had covered 500 metres.

Wafula was alarmed but the customer assured him the route passes through his village and they were safe.

“After weaving our way through the village, we took another route that looked swampy. All of a sudden, the customer grabbed my neck and injected me with an unknown substance,” recalls Mr Wafula.

The man then shoved Wafula aside and attempted to take off on the motorcycle.

“I gathered strength and managed to grab him by the neck before he could speed off,” says Wafula.

He says they wrestled in the muddy water for close to two hours and he managed to unplug the key from the motorcycle and hide it.

“The drug he injected me with didn’t affect me immediately. Luckily, a Good Samaritan came at around 2pm and rescued me but the man ran away,” says Wafula.

Wafula then spent four days in hospital unconscious after the drug took effect.

Tobias Wandera, another rider, was ferrying two passengers on the same Lwandeti-Nzoia road at 7.30pm when he was attacked and his motorcycle stolen.

Mr Wandera says barely two kilometres from where the two men boarded his motorcycle, the one in the middle grabbed his throat and ordered him to stop. This was two weeks ago.

The rider is still nursing cuts on the forehead and hands and now the owner of the motorcycle is threatening to take him to court.

“The owner of the motorcycle told me that after recuperating fully, I should give him his bike back since he believes I conspired with those who attacked me to steal it. He said if I will not buy him a new one, he will take me to court,” says Wandera.

He says he has decided to sell his quarter-acre piece of land so that he can buy a new motorcycle to replace the stolen one.

Posing as a passenger

Patrick Shivachi, a rider from Likuyani, says he was returning home at 8pm with his brother when a woman stopped them, posing as a passenger.

He says upon stopping, five men came from the nearby bush and pounced on them with pangas and other crude weapons.

“They took away our motorcycles and went away. We had bought them after securing a bank loan three days earlier,” says Shivachi. The rider says his brother spent two months in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) whereas he spent month at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, Eldoret, nursing deep cuts.

“The banks are now threatening to auction us since we have failed to repay the loans of Sh150,000 each,” he says.

Lwamabunga boda boda chairman Enock Murakho says when motorcycles are stolen, their owners take them to the police, accusing them of conspiring with the criminals.

“These riders you see don’t own motorbikes of their own. They pay everyday between Sh300 and Sh400 as leasing fee to the owners of the motorcycles. In case they get stolen, you are forced to buy a new one and take it to the owner. Majority sell their property to replace stolen motorbikes,” says Murakho.

He says in case the rider is killed in the attack, his family is compelled to buy a new motorcycle. Apart from the attacks, the riders have also accused the police of harassment and extortion.

Luke Khaemba says officers at Frank Police Post and Lugari, Lumakanda and Matete police stations arrest them without any reason and demand hefty fines.

Khaemba says the officers demand between Sh5,000 and Sh20,000 as fines, but never take anyone to court.

But Matete OCPD Justus Maina said the riders are only arrested when they flout traffic rules.

Mr Maina says no rider has ever lodged a formal complaint of extortion so that action can be taken.

The police boss says cases of boda boda attacks and killings are reducing, terming it as “normal crime”.

He says he cannot account exactly for all the deaths from boda boda attacks since some are not reported. Mr Maina however says they are investigating where the motorcycles are normally taken and promises to crack down on the criminals.

“We are appealing to the riders to also stop operating past 10pm,” he says.

Harassment

Police accused of waylaying riders and extorting money

It is 7.30pm on Monday at Lwandeti Junction on the Eldoret-Malaba highway in Lugari Constituency.

You can hardly see a boda boda operator still in business and those who happen to come are in groups of two or three riders. We are joined by a motorcycle rider at 8pm who informs two other riders of our agreed meeting point.

We board his motorcycle and the two other riders go ahead of us. We are separated by about 500 metres on Lwandeti-Lugari-Nzoia road. The road is potholed and we are forced to slow down. The riders say the poor state of the road makes them vulnerable to attacks.

Barely 2km from the junction, a young woman stops them. Two men then jump from the thicket and confiscate the motorcycles keys.

We arrive at the scene two minutes later and are also stopped. The young woman vanishes. The two men move aside, making calls and conversing in low tones. The riders say the men from the thicket are police officers and caution me not to identify myself.

They come back to us and shout: “You are under arrest.” We are then taken to Frank Police Post and at the gate, they order the three riders to give them Sh10,000 so that they are freed. The cameraman and I are freed since we had posed as passengers, but the three riders are taken to the cells.

We then call Lwamabunga boda boda operators chairman Enock Murakho who arrives at the police post 30 minutes later accompanied by other riders and Sh15,000. They negotiate with the officers, hand over the cash and the three men are set free.

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