An open letter to the Nairobi City County, Nairobi County, The Governor. Dear Sir, I hope this finds you in good health. God grant it. It is with a heavy heart that I write this letter, not that I want to sound as indignant or ungrateful. Nay. Far away from that. I am proud of what you are doing to make our life better. I must appreciate the effort by the kanjo to get rid of the hawkers. After all they are a nuisance, I must admit. Or aren’t they? However I must sound my reservations and apprehension on the manner in which the askaris are dealing with this menace. The brutality I have witnessed so far is second to none. I talk about Ngara area (I hope in other parts of town they are treated better). This brings to mind the many occasions I have witnessed hawkers being battered senseless before being dragged into a waiting kanjo pick-up. Just the other day I saw hawker getting stabbed by a policeman (don’t mistake it for an accidental bayonet). The rationale behind this, as I later came to learn, was to make sure he would not flee from the van that comes collecting these incapacitated human forms. You need not worry about the facts. Just ask a person or two who have been caught in the maddening rush. Need I say that next to this favourite playground for cop and hawker, there are schools? I shudder imagining a pupil caught in the crossfire. Or is it our lot as Kenyans to act ignorant until something goes wrong then we begin baying for blood, our eyes misted with self-righteous wrath? This I do not say for sensationalizing’s sake. I am not a hawker. Neither is my immediate cousin. I write this as a human being who believes that humanity transcends, and in fact it should, brutality. But then I am apprehensive if this missive will have any impact so far. That is not mine to know. The hawker maybe wrong, and of course he or she is, but two wrongs a right do not make. What devil makes me believe that a letter drafted and posted online will have any impact I may never know. Yet I am constantly reminded that it takes silence for violence to flourish. Yet, sir, I would not attempt voicing my disquiet if I did not have absolute faith in your humaneness – and so in the treatment of hawkers. For he/she, over and above being a hawker, is a family’s member and breadwinner. This zeal with which the police run after hawkers, at the risk of other Nairobians – both pedestrian and motorists and especially pupils – would be quite impressive if invested in security. What then do I propose? I may be asked. A lasting solution. I would reply. I, sir, am yours truly Wa Warubaga
Posted on: Wed, 15 Oct 2014 11:12:51 +0000
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