That Nairobi City County askaris aka Kanjos have converted our hardworking hawkers into punching bags and ATMs, is now not in doubt.
You see, there are questions which have been raised for quite some time now and which touch on the hawker-askari wars, with the most interesting one being: What do these Kanjos smoke?!
Some people have even raised issues with their uniform. I am now inclined to believe those people who have observed that anybody donning such an unsightly outfit can be anything but friendly.
I will not stray into the finer details of the fights and bribery claims that is now the talk of town. My worry is, what will happen should Nairobians wake up one morning to the news that there are no more hawkers? That a very big ship, twice the size of Noah’s Ark, has docked at the Port of Mombasa and took all the hawkers and their families to Vietnam or Singapore. Just anywhere but Kenya.
What sort of press statement will City Hall release? Will we talk of a loss or relief at having them out of the streets? If you ask me, apart from those who were in the hawkers’ vitabu za deni, there would be no celebrations. In fact, Kanjos would be the hardest hit.
In as much as they can be annoying, especially when the first thing they take in the morning is chang’aa or some third generation liquor, one thing we must admit is that hawkers are not particularly bad chaps.
They are good because they tend to have no boundaries, and that is exactly why they will get in and out of pubs, whether or not the management has pinned a ‘no hawking’ notice.
Men (I am yet to know about women) will discover when they are in their fourth or fifth beer – and this could be the time this lucky hawker saunters in – that they need to buy another belt, nyahunyo, axe etc. These are things this guy will never think of buying, because he is always too much in a hurry to leave the supermarket ‘before it finishes his money,’ even if he has just won a jackpot.
Some hawkers can give you super good deals, something you will be thinking about for a very long time on your way back home. You might even be tempted to ask yourself whether they got the stuff from a supermarket on fire (read ‘free’) or from a wholesaler in China.
Wasi Wasi, which is Kiswahili for apprehension, is the nickname one of the dreaded county inspectorate officials charged with the murder of hawkers, has been given by these street vendors. Now, such a nickname is not what you would be given for winning a Sh1,000 sports bet. No!
It speaks volumes about the frustrations men and women who wake up every morning to hawk their wares go through at the hands of these askaris. And up to that point, as we head into our various churches for prayers, morning glory devotions, prayer rallies (hoping that they will still be ongoing), let us kindly include Nairobi hawkers in our prayers.
Somebody say Amen!
