I do not know so much about the Mungiki other than that it is a religious sect that has been receiving plenty of media attention for all the wrong reasons. They are a religious sect because that, at least, is how they have publicly portrayed themselves.
I also do not know much about Kamjesh other than it being what it claims to be -friends of matatu operators who are only trying to keep off the "bad boys" (read Mungiki) from the lucrative Kenyan commuter transport industry.
But I do know something about organised crime. I also know a little about how criminal gangs play protection and punishment games to get payment, usually in very tidy sums. I can't exactly say that Mungiki, or Kamjesh fit this profile.
But I can certainly say that there is something deeply unsettling about those bloody wars in Dandora that pitted these two factions against each other.
Fighting with crude weapons, the Mungiki-Kamjesh battles cut off Dandora from the rest of the city for days before police restored sanity, or more precisely until Mungiki took charge!
Even more worrying is the manner in which Mungiki has gone on to acquire lucrative matatu routes after overpowering Kamjesh in the skirmishes that lasted over a week, and left scores dead.
Mungiki's self-styled National Co-ordinator, Ibrahim Ndura Waruinge, announced last week that the sect will move on to acquire more routes within and outside Nairobi.
While announcing the take-over of all the stages along route 25, Waruinge was accompanied by Baba Dogo Matatu Sacco officials. But isn't it rather strange seeing legitimate entrepreneurs cavorting with a sect leader who has more political interests than a serious business sense, so to speak?
In old Italy, entrepreneurs, because they feared the Mafia's ability to punish, paid protection money to the Mafia. But Mungiki is not Mafia, and the matatu owners are not, so they say, paying protection money.
However, there is only one problem here. The entrepreneurs' willingness to pay may, or to be more precise will, encourage opportunistic criminals with Mungiki's or Kamjesh's reputation to also demand money.
Already, some kind of precedent which has the potential to spawn hundreds of criminals has been set here. This means that, at a certain point, all matatu owners will need some kind of protection from marauding brigands who will be demanding money from them.
Consequently, there will be a need for different versions of Mungiki and Kamjesh in every part of the country where matatus operate. These "hoodlums" will be there ostensibly to offer protection and regulate operations.
But in essence, they will be criminally oriented groups who will ignore all forms of authority except their own. In typical gangland style, they will (or are they already on?) work this way:
You owe them something and they expect you to deliver. In this case matatu operators will be paying to be protected from alleged opportunistic criminals.
They will be expected to deliver by a certain date, assuming the payment will not be demanded in advance. If you don't deliver, that's when you'll run into trouble. If you are on your own with no one to vouch for you, you are as good as dead if you can't deliver.
Yet, the only people matatu operators will need protection from are these same people who purport to offer them protection. There will be take-overs and counter-take-overs of routes as different groups attempt to assert their authority.
There will be running battles like those witnessed in Dandora. There will be disruptions, life will be lost and property will be destroyed. It will be worse than South Africa's bloody taxi turf wars.
I do not know how, but only matatu operators can save themselves and the commuters from this looming disaster. Not the police, or even Mungiki and Kamjesh will save them.