Morgue stay that reformed gangster

By Michael Oriedo

Journeying back into his youth, Kennedy Chingi prays that time erases the sad happenings that characterised his early life.

Chingi counts himself fortunate as he recounts numerous occasions he cheated death while living on the wrong side of the law.

One time during a robbery incident, he says a mob beat him unconscious and he was taken to the City Mortuary where he spent hours with the dead before a morgue attendant discovered he was alive.

AT WORK: Reformed Kennedy is now a store manager in Nairobi. Photo/Michael Oriedo/ Standard

With his two accomplices, Chingi raided the construction site in Donholm Estate. However, their days were numbered. "We grabbed the cash but we did not manage to escape. Workers descended on us with all kinds of tools and construction materials," he recalls.

Luckily, police arrived in time to save them. His accomplices were taken to hospital while his ‘body’ was dumped at the City Mortuary because the officers believed he was dead.

"I was assigned the tag 1261/04. I stayed at the mortuary for hours before an attendant discovered I was still breathing. Mortuary authorities took me to KNH where I stayed for three weeks," he says.

Great temptation

It is while at the hospital that he resolved to change his ways. "To date, I do not believe my brief stay at the morgue was accidental. Someone wanted me to learn a lesson," he says.

When he left the hospital, he relocated to Mathare Slums where he joined One Love, an ex-criminal group engaging in garbage collection in the area.

"We were about 20. We would collect garbage from residents and get money for our upkeep," he says. "However, the temptation of reverting to crime was very high since the money we got was little."

Later, Reality-Tested Youth Group (RYP), an organisation that runs a project aimed at saving youths in the area from life in crime, bought for them uniforms, gloves and gumboots and trained them on how to work resourcefully.

Francis Irungu, RYP’s co-ordinator says Chingi is a reformed man. "We have incorporated his group in our programmes and made him to co-ordinate our environment projects. He is in charge of our store. We also assign him responsibilities to pay other people whenever we engage them in environmental clean up," he says.

Chingi observes that poverty is not the main reason why youths in slums engage in crime. "Many involve in crime because they want to live ‘luxurious’ lives they cannot afford," he says.

In his criminal life, he says he has learnt that crime does not pay. "You get money but because it is not genuine, you squander it on luxurious things. With time, you become enslaved to crime. I am happy that I now live a free life," he concludes.