What society are we building that can watch a man die and not help?
What you need to know:
- Mr Mutiso was hit and sustained serious internal injuries. There were many other people who were slightly hurt. The crew of the matatu calmly got out of their vehicle and melted away.
- None of the onlookers and police officers milling around the scene took Mr Mutiso to hospital. They took the ones who did not look too badly off and left him writhing in pain on the ground.
- I asked God to take judicial notice of how unfair it was for a man who had worked so diligently to make a living for himself and had dedicated his life to alleviating the pain of strangers should be killed so casually and his cries for help unheeded so cruelly.
Albanus Maweu Mutiso, 45, was a good man. When I visited his home in Kathonzweni in Makueni county, my respect for him grew. Kathonzweni is beautiful, a hard uncompromising beauty.
It is green, this being the wet season, but nothing of much use grows there. The maize grows to a foot and would not grow any more. The patchy grass looks promising, but it is the wet, soft, rain-soaked type that gives cows a running stomach.
You must respect all people who come from backgrounds so deprived and make something of their lives. Mr Mutiso was a nurse at the Makueni county hospital where he saved lives and cared for the sick.
But he was not a man to sit back and take life easy. He had enrolled at the Kenya Medical Training Institute for a course to improve his skills and make life better for himself and his family.
Back in the day, he finished school only because he was tenacious and his headmaster was a man of principle who refused to send away students because of inability to pay fees.
Mr Mutiso was buried last Saturday. He died at Kenyatta National Hospital earlier in the week, the victim of a hit and run accident.
On Monday, April 13, he was walking on Haile Selassie Avenue in Nairobi at 6.30am on the way to KMTC. Such was his diligence that even though he lived in Kitengela, he was in town that early.
As he walked on the pavement, the driver of a matatu who was racing another matatu appeared to lose control of his vehicle and ploughed into pedestrians, according to relatives.
MELTED AWAY
Mr Mutiso was hit and sustained serious internal injuries. There were many other people who were slightly hurt. The crew of the matatu calmly got out of their vehicle and melted away.
I was told the owner has explained that he did not know who was driving his vehicle that day, that it was a relief “squad” that was in control at the time of the accident. I do not know how true this is, though I intend to find out.
None of the onlookers and police officers milling around the scene took Mr Mutiso to hospital. They took the ones who did not look too badly off and left him writhing in pain on the ground.
Apparently, people are scared of being blamed for the death of an accident victim they rescue.
Nobody called St John’s, Red Cross, the City Council ambulance service. Nobody called the Sonko Rescue Team, either.
And so Mr Mutiso, a man of great courage, got to his phone and called his wife. Because she was far away in Kitengela, she called relatives who lived closer to town to go and rescue him.
The relatives found him on the road, in pain with no help or comfort from the sea of people around him.
I never knew Mr Mutiso but I know people who did and when I heard his tragic story, I resolved to attend his funeral, not just to comfort those whose lives have been ruined by his death but as an act of penance and protest against a society that has lost its humanity.
I am not a very religious man, but my children have taught me to pray. So, in the heat of the Kathonzweni sun, hungry, sad, and resentful, I prayed for Mr Mutiso, his wife, and two children.
I asked God to take judicial notice of how unfair it was for a man who had worked so diligently to make a living for himself and had dedicated his life to alleviating the pain of strangers should be killed so casually and his cries for help unheeded so cruelly. A good man so unfortunate, I argued, to live among a people so inhuman deserved the reward of admission into paradise.
The priest who said mass at the funeral, however, shone a little beam of light into the despair in my heart. I will not cheat you, he told the family, you have lost your bread winner.
Your lives will change, things will be difficult. Please cry because you have suffered great pain and loss. But do not cry for too long because the business of living must continue. Leave the dead to God, they are none of your business. Your business is life.
And so Mr Mutiso was buried. Nobody cares that an innocent man’s life has been taken by another, scrambling for Sh200.
