A lady friend called one morning to inform me that her child had been taken ill and hospitalized in St. Mary’s Hospital in Langata. I promised to visit that afternoon. I left my work station at 1.30 pm and took a matatu to town. I walked to Railway’s bus terminus to board matatu number 15 to St. Mary’s. Being in a hurry, I didn’t have the patience to wait for the matatus waiting in the queue to fill in the passengers. If you have been to that terminus, you might be aware of some matatus that do not follow the queue. If you stand on Haile Selassie directly opposite Cooperative House, you might be lucky to catch one.
This was one of those lucky days. It didn’t take me a minute before hopping into a 14-seater matatu. On getting in I realized I was the only passenger, this meant I would spend more time on the road since they would make a stop in every bus stage.
Barely
a kilometer away from Railways, we made the first stop. It was at the Kobil
Petrol station at the junction of Haile Selassie and Uhuru highway, just next
to Neno Evangelism Church of the famous apostle Nganga. We were there for about
5 minutes that to me seemed like an eternity. Immediately the driver cranked up
the engine so we could start moving, the conductor shouted something in a signature
soprano Kisii dialect (Btw how does a choir made up of only kisiis’ sound?)
and the driver engaged a reverse gear for a few meters inside the petrol
station.
Seven gentlemen boarded the matatu. One sat in front with the driver, two occupied the seats behind the driver, one besides the conductor, one besides me (I sat behind the conductor, the seat that is detached from the rest to allow for a path to the back seats) and two in the back seat. The two in the back seat had bags and so was the one besides the conductor. One of those behind the driver, had a brown A-4 envelop and he seemed to be in his 50’s. I realized they knew each other when the conductor asked for fare and they started contributing like they were holding a funds drive. I handed the conductor my 50 shillings and kept my cool.
It was towards the tail end of 2016 and politics in
the country had started heating up. There was a bit of traffic between Bunyala
Rd and Nyayo round about. They started discussing politics saying how their
victory would not be stolen again, that gave me a hint what side of the
political divide they supported. Besides, being in a matatu No 15 is obvious, hiyo huwa inaelekea bedroom ya baba, yawa! One of the gentlemen seated behind me asked who I
was supporting for the presidency and without hesitating I said Baba (Of course I lied, I was fully supporting the dynamic duo. You know! We like experimenting. We wanted to taste choices served with raw consequences. We are now full and vomiting. Don't ask me questions, am still recuperating). He rubbed
my head and said, ‘wewe ni wetu.’ We made a stop at Nyayo bus stop. No one boarded. By this time, I had sensed these people were not good
guys, I could read the face of the conductor and tell all was not well. I
became more observant of the glances they exchanged and realized they were
communicating something.
On
arriving at Madaraka bus stop, a young man approached to board. He had a nice brown leather cross bag. I must say from the onset that
he must have been a friend to the gym or probably he fed well. I could tell
from how his chest and biceps filled his black round necked t-shirt. Remember
the two guys seated behind the driver, the one next to the door, the one with a
brown envelop and looked in his 50’s? He alighted and pretended to be going to
the front (This I later realized was to ensure that the young man didn’t
seat in front). The young man sat behind the driver, where the old man
initially sat. When he got settled, the old man came back from the front door
where he had been standing and requested him to move (The seat behind the
driver accommodates 3 pax). Now the young man got sandwiched between the
two guys.
A
few meters away at Shell petrol station just next to T-Mall, one of the guys
faked a call and pretended to be talking to someone saying, “Wako hapo? Eti
wanashika watu juu ya mshipi, eti wanaitisha elfu tano?” People in the
matatu started scampering looking for their safety-belts to avoid getting
arrested and parting with 5 thousand shillings, myself included. I was lucky
though my seat was detached from others so it was easier to fasten mine.
I could see the two men wrestling the young man saying, “Hii ni yangu! Amka!
yako ndio hii hapa” and such like stuff. I literally saw their hands in his
pockets. Nothing was in his pockets. I saw the old guy with an envelope open
the young man’s leather bag and get out a nice-looking phone, fold it with the
envelop and hand it to the man behind him, the one besides the conductor. He
immediately slithered the phone together with the envelop in his bag. The man behind me grabbed me by the neck and
warned me to keep my beak shut. I obliged, I pretended I saw nothing.
On
arrival at Wilson bus stop, the old man who took the phone, followed by the one
he gave and the two guys behind me alighted. It is then that the young man
realized that his phone was missing and immediately ordered the conductor to
shut the door before the rest could get out. He suspected the guy seated next
to him at the corner. This is where the gym we earlier talked about came in.
The guy got grabbed by his ninii. Kizaazaa kikazuka! Remember the guy
next to me? He jumped to the seat in front so he could help his counterpart. By
this time the driver had requested the young man to give his number amid the
squabble to call and get to know if the phone was still on. The driver called and
the phone was still on though not in the precincts of the matatu. By this time
the vehicle was on the move. Hapa ilikua kama movie I tell you! The guy
in front was literally fighting with the driver for the wheel. The drivers
elbow got into the guy and he surrendered. Btw we almost got into a ditch. My
guy was still wrestling the guy that was seated with him. The conductor and
myself tried getting hold of the other guy so he could not reach the young
man.
Luckily during that time, Administration Police used to mount a barrier just outside Amref offices as you head towards town. The driver made a quick calculative decision and crossed the road to the other side where the APs barrier was. All this while we were shouting wezi! wezi! and the driver was hooting continuously.
Thank God there were no oncoming vehicles at that particular
moment, otherwise we would have been crushed into minced meat. We alighted from
the mat and the 3 guys immediately got handcuffed. I almost got cuffed too, the
conductor saved me. The matatu drove off towards town after dropping us, not
before the driver explained to the cops what had transpired, he also assured
the young man that he would pass by Langata police station to write his
statement. Good driver that one, and his conductor. Real Kenyan shujaas,
a rare kind. God bless the work of their hands.
The
young man called his phone one more time, this time someone answered and
informed him that he had dropped his phone at the bus stop in Madaraka while
boarding the matatu. It was a lie! A fat naked lie! I had seen them take the phone;
the conductor saw it too. Their accomplices informed them they were in hot soup.
The reason they decided to surrender the
phone, to get their friends off the hook. The AP called Langata police station,
we sat there waiting. A gentleman that was seated behind me in the matatu came
with the phone pretending that he was the good Samaritan that had collected it
at the bus stop. He got cuffed too. The victim vowed not to forgive them
despite having gotten back his mobile phone. Being the only witness, I assured
him that I would accompany him to the station to record my statement as well.
This did not sit well with the thugs, they kept telling me not to meddle into
other peoples’ affairs. “Wewe kuna simu yako imepotea? Jipe shugli kijanaa
ama utaumia bure!” They kept telling me. I decided to give them a deaf ear.
The OCS from Langata police station, then a lady, arrived about 30 minutes later. She got a short brief of what had transpired. I remember her instructing us to take several photos of the criminals and told us to publish them in all our social media platforms so the public could get to know them by their faces (Don’t ask for those photos, I lost them). We later boarded the blue canter to the police station. It was my first time to board a police vehicle. The criminals were thrown into a cell just behind the OB desk where we wrote a statement. It is while writing the statement that I discovered that the victim was a doctor at Riruta Health Centre where Kim, a friend of mine worked then. I told him that I had a friend who worked there, he acknowledged knowing him. However due to the tension and the complexity of the matter we didn’t get to talk much. The police man on the OB book insisted that he should leave the phone as exhibit. By this time there were three guys who had come to see the bad guys and I saw them talk pointing at us. At this point I was so shaken.
It was about 5.30 pm and I was so confused. Didn’t know whether to proceed to the hospital or go home. We exchanged numbers with my guy and we agreed should the case proceed to court I would be available to testify. I left him arguing with the police man on leaving his phone behind or going with it. I jumped onto a motorbike at the stations gate and made my way to the hospital to see my friend’s son. I never received a call from my good friend on what transpired thereafter. I however searched him on Facebook and we are now “friends”! Ain’t sure if he remembers me though, maybe he just accepted a friend request just the way we all randomly do without caring who they are. I will however tag him here so he could tell us what happened later.
Doc, you denied me a lifetime chance of
testifying in a court of law, I even had my script ready mehn! Hapo hata haungehitaji
wakili! my testimony alone would have seen them gnash their teeth for a decade in manyani.
