Victimisation of the Vitz must end

By Tony Ngare

A few of weeks ago, I met a long lost friend at Sarit Centre, Nairobi. We were together at university. I don’t know whether I should be revealing this but she was dating our lecturer — and had no apologies to make.

After exchanging pleasantries and doing a little catching up, she charged like a deranged feline.

"Why have you been writing hate stories about Toyota Vitz? Do you want me to stop reading your column?" she hissed. "Every time I open the Sunday Magazine, there you are prominently maligning my little sweet car," she continued.

I tried to explain that I was merely trying to empower Vitz drivers. But she would hear none of it.

"What do you mean empower? Ask me about empowerment, I am the one in the NGO world," she shrieked. Seeing that matters could easily disintegrate into something else and with stares coming from all directions, I decided to back down to fight another day. After all, those staring at us from far wouldn’t know that we were arguing over cars and not bedroom matters.

Days later, the Miss Kenya finals were held and the lucky beauty got to drive away with a Vitz. However, as it was widely reported in the media, the tiny Vitz came with a plethora of conditions. Some are so harsh that even the renowned International Mother and Father (read IMF) would dare not put such conditionality on Robert Mugabe’s government leave alone ours!

For starters, that car cannot be driven by anyone else apart from her. Can you imagine a medical emergency involving the beauty queen but the family members must dash to the nearby pub to look for a taxi to take her to hospital?

Ammunition for return match

Talking of pubs, the vehicle is not to be found outside any of the entertainment scenes at night —perhaps even during the day. So she cannot go in the car to a gala night at any of the prestigious spots despite it being a corporate event with the who is who of this part of the world.

This gave me ammunition for a ‘return match’ against my pal when we met for lunch a few days later.

"So, do you believe that any car, leave alone a Vitz, deserves all these conditions?" I asked her.

"He who pays the piper plays the music," she answered.

"What about the way media has frowned on the conditions imposed on the use of car?" I pestered her.

"The media is following a well beaten path," she insisted. "A path that you and others are responsible for demarcating and making the Kenyan motorist look down on the Vitz," she said, already indicting me without much of a just cause followed.

I was hoping to convince her a lot of other people — not just me — harbour modest respect for the car. But she succeeded in spinning the argument and accused me of being one of the architects of pouring vitriol on the otherwise magnificent car.

She maintained that even on the road everyone, sometimes even cyclists, attempt to harass a Vitz driver.

Hooted and accelerated

"Can you imagine the other day, a motorcyclist tried to take me on down Valley Road?" she posed.

"I simply hooted and slammed down the accelerator, not caring whether the cyclist would end up suspended on the prickly live fence or in a drainage ditch," she said.

She believes it is time Vitz and other small car drivers retaliated some of the harsh treatment they have been receiving from motorists driving bigger cars.

People, you know Mahatma Gandhi famously observed that an eye for an eye would leave India (and the world) blind.

So before we all become blind please show some little courtesy not only to the drivers of small cars but everyone else on the road. If an eye for an eye could leave us all blind, a smile for a smile would leave everyone happy!

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