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Drive around Nairobi on any given day, and the sheer number of yellow-jacketed, baton-wielding, cap-wearing, bribe-seeking City Council — or is it County these days?— askaris is shocking.
They are on every corner, they inhabit every space, they hang around every zebra crossing, they are in your hair and down your shirt, like a collection of cheap t-shirts.
It is then surprising that, despite this overcrowding presence of askaris, Nairobi is still one of the dirtiest, most crime-ridden and traffic-choked cities in the world.
In an ideal Nairobi, these layabouts would be arresting people for littering and urinating all over Nairobi, locking up all those muggers who waylay Nairobians and rob them in broad daylight, and efficiently directing traffic to avoid the shocking delays caused by Nairobi’s legendary traffic snarl-ups.
But that would be too easy, because it would require the askaris to actually do their jobs. And, of course, if the Council askaris did this, then what would the police pretend to be doing?
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Imagine City Council askaris actually directing traffic — what, then, happens to our Traffic Police? Do they take early retirement and go farm tomatoes?
As it is, though, our Traffic Police need not begin learning about the different strains of tomatoes and what fertilizer to use to get the perfect, rounded tomato that is red and sweet and resembles what you know it resembles.
No, our City Council askaris are, like their police cousins, wasting no time collecting bribes from unwitting wananchi. This is how the askari scam works.
Quick chat
A City Council lorry, usually a water tanker, takes up a strategic position straddling two lanes of traffic on a busy Nairobi road. By the time some motorist shows up and sits behind the lorry.
Thus cued, the lorry then proceeds to drive towards the nearest traffic lights, with the motorists behind it following through, as expected.
Being a Council lorry, it is then waved through the lights when they are red, and carefully note the motorists behind it are also waved through by council askaris.
They naturally go ahead to run the red lights, since they have been asked through by the askari on duty, and are promptly stopped and arrested at the subsequent traffic light.
A quick chat with the arresting warded follows, a threat of having to pay 5,000 bob for the offence is administered, and the driver gratefully parts with the demanded 2,000 bob bribe – and is then let go. Wonderful, beautiful Nairobi!
