Some things are simply unbelievable.
Take the vicious turf war that has been going on at the Dandora matatu terminus in Nairobi pitting Mungiki against Kamjeshi. The two have become notorious urban gangs who fall somewhere between the underworld and outright criminality. In the latest flare-up, six people have been killed.
The war is about which gang is to be recognised as the official enforcer at the terminus. The interesting bit is that none of these violent busybodies owns a single matatu. What is more, none of the genuine matatu owners has asked any of these bandits for help.
If you have no idea how the matatu business operates, you will wonder how some self-appointed parasite will install himself the regulator of a matatu route, without invitation from the owners, the crew or the government. You will wonder at the cheek of this fellow who expects to be paid -handsomely - by those owners for "services" that are completely unsolicited and quite probably unnecessary.
It is first and foremost a matter of greed. The matatu business is a multi-billion shilling cash cow. Inevitably, a lot of idlers with no stake in the matatu investment have shown no shame in their rush to milk this cow. And not all of them come in the manner of undisguised outlaws like Mungiki or Kamjeshi.
A few weeks ago, I attended a seminar on public transport management in the city. As seminars go, it was a predictable affair, with the usual earnest presentations coming up but which I knew would end up, as always, gathering dust in some NGO office.
The various so-called stakeholders were all there: The Matatu Welfare Association, the Kenya Bus Services, the Automobile Association, the Association of Kenya Insurers, lobby groups, the lot.
I had not reckoned, however, on finding conspicuously listed as a "stakeholder" one Ibrahim Ndura Waruinge, the "national co-ordinator" of Mungiki. There he was, with his trademark cap, holding forth about the matatu business like one who was born to it.
I vividly recall one question directed at the Mungiki man, wanting to know what interest his group has in the matatu sector and who had mandated them to get embroiled in "security enforcement". He answered, quite cockily, that Mungiki felt it was its duty to man terminuses such as Dandora's, to bring "order" to the route system, or so he put it.
But who exactly was Mungiki acting on behalf of when the owners and the customers (the passengers) had not asked the group for its helping hand, the questioner persisted. Sometimes it is good to act without prompting when it comes to the travelling public's best interests, Mr Waruinge calmly replied, without any hint of irony. I remember asking myself: The public interest, being watched over by Mungiki? I felt like laughing out aloud.
I was not alone in finding it comical that Mungiki followers could be portrayed as some Mother Teresa-style do-gooders. Somebody on the panel tentatively recalled another incident where some hapless ladies had been stripped naked in the city by a group of alleged Mungiki adherents, ostensibly for dressing indecently. Are we seeing Mungiki's compassion extending to policing morals and the proper dress for the ladies, the panellist wanted to know? Rubbish, retorted Mr Waruinge, it was all manufactured by the Special Branch.
I wonder whether Mr Waruinge will say the bloody mess in Dandora is another creation of the Special Branch. If anything, the police and the forces of law enforcement have been incredibly lax in taking up their duty there, while allowing Mungiki and Kamjeshi to masquerade as the agents of law and order.
At a baraza on Thursday, the formidable Nairobi police boss, Mr Geoffrey Mwathe, gave warning that none of the gangs will be tolerated at the terminus any longer. I respect Mr Mwathe as a serious and no-nonsense officer, and I believe somebody like him should be given a free hand to instil discipline in the matatu sector the way he has caused fear in Nairobi's army of robbers and gangsters. Otherwise, his colleagues in the Traffic Department will never do it.
That said, it is not going to be easy removing the leeches who hang onto the matatu business. The police themselves are the most rapacious leeches of all.
Nobody bothers to pretend any more that the endless roadblocks on our highways (on an average day, there are about five along the 36-km stretch from Nairobi to Thika) serve any other purpose than as toll stations. It is more or less an open secret that the bribes collected there are shared with higher-ups in the Police Force, not just amongst the constables and patrolmen manning the roadblocks.
Come to think of it, the police don't mind a whit when the matatu sector persists in its chaos. After all, the interests of the corrupt are best served when there is as little order as possible in the sector. For where there is order, where there is sanity, the daily takings from bribes are going to dwindle.
Then there is the Transport Licensing Board, reconstituted with considerable fanfare in 1999. Naively, some people imagined its re-establishment was for the right reasons, that it would work to bring some sense into the hellish public transport sector. In retrospect, it does not seem like it was meant for this purpose. It has turned out to be just another officially-sanctioned route for fleecing the matatu sector, though only a little less crudely by calling the monies "levies." In short, the TLB has become just another leech.
The mess in the public transport sector is not going to go away until we confront the forces of corruption and greed that envelop this sector from all corners. At the same seminar where Mr Waruinge was the star, an official from the AA gave an illuminating breakdown of a study they had conducted which showed that running a matatu by the book (meaning adhering faithfully to traffic rules, speed limits, passenger loads, inspection timetables, service schedules, prompt insurance payments, and the like) ended up leaving no profit to the operator.
The alarming conclusion: The matatu business breaks even only when rules are broken. Otherwise there won't be anything left for the bribe-seekers, the touts, the enforcers, while still ensuring the poor operator services his loan and takes something home for his family.