Why 'panga' has now been raised to the weapon status

In the last one week, a couple of people have been killed for going after men armed with a machete (panga). The first went after Ndia MP Stephen Ngare, the second went after a police officer, in a police station no less.

But the focus is not on the attacks using a panga, ironically, it is the people targeted. A panga is an ordinary day item for many households in Kenya.

In fact it is not considered a weapon by many, more of a farming implement, and in many cases that what it is. Even a man without a piece of land to his name would not be caught dead without a panga in his house.

Where I come from it is a symbol of hard work, a man walking the street with a dusty panga at the end of a day is a clear indication of a man who has done his fair share of toiling for the day. Although my kinsmen have been known to use the machete a little too liberally on the limbs of those they disagree with.

As we grew up, everyone had a panga they called their own, so when the old man asked what you were doing seated under a tree at 10am, you got up quietly, picked up your designated panga and slunk around the corner of the house, through the small gap between the house and the hedge and into the shamba.

Sharpest tool in the box

Even the old man had his. In this case the sharpest panga in the household and even when he was drinking his tea under a tree in the compound he would have it beside him. And as he sipped tea from his thermos, usually the only one covered with those vitambaas our mother used to knit, he would survey the compound over the rim of his steaming mug.

Whenever a stray twig on the hedge caught his eye, he would saunter over, swing his panga at the offending twig, look around for effect and stroll back to his chair.

That was then; today the use of the panga has changed drastically. Drivers keep pangas in their cars for something no one is quite sure about. Some claim it is all about protection.

But in this environment one wonders how. By the time a potential carjacker points a rusty pistol at your head it would be nothing short of suicidal to start groping under your seat for the comforting feel of the wooden handle of a panga.

They are right up there in the league of fifth-floor, squatting Nairobi men who own a panga for reasons best known to them. Among this lot are those charging at police officers with machetes. These are the same police officers who would pump lead into you for engaging them in a fierce gunfight with a toy pistol, how much more a man wielding a real life panga?