Yvonne Owuor had an army on social media, but this hawker took on a city askari solo

A fortnight ago, before Yvonne Owuor, author of the runaway successful novel Dust and a local celebrity among the Kenyan literati, was manhandled and mistreated by the un-uniformed thugs going by the name city askaris in a leafy suburb west of Nairobi, far from the maddening crowd, a somewhat similar manhandling had taken place right in the central business district.

Just outside the Tuskys (Imara) supermarket on Tom Mboya Street, a city askari, as they are wont to do, was cowering a youthful female street vendor, who had a baby strapped on her back, for a bribe.

It was 6pm on a weekday and Kenyans were on their way home.

There is a matatu stop for minibuses for homebound Nairobians going to Dagoretti and Waithaka right in front of the supermarket’s entrance, and so there were people milling around.

BRIBES
It is true, not every day are these vendors in a mood to entertain the city askaris’ tomfoolery.

And there are a zillion reasons – from never having enough money to grease their rough hands daily, to being recalcitrant and ready for the worst – the worst being that they are bundled into a waiting City Inspectorate van to be scuttled to a police cell, to fighting back to protect their dignity, in a way, showing the askaris that they may be doing their job, by being on their beat, to ensure city streets are free of vendors and hawkers, but that does not give them the right to demand bribes forcefully and violently and behave like buffaloes on rut.

So, on this day, I do not know what reason, or reasons, the woman had for resisting to part with some of her loot.

But what certainly spilled her anger was when the lone city askari scattered her blackberry grapes on the ground.

INCOME DESTROYED

Now these grapes, imported from South Africa, are a dime expensive, not only to the street vendors, but even for the buyers.

They are sold in real small bunches of Sh100 each to the vendors, so that they can resell them for between Sh130 and Sh150.

The city askari had just destroyed about 20 bunches of her grapes. She had just settled down to sell, and hence she had not sold anything.

Have you ever seen a woman thou art loose?

The woman, unstrapping the baby – oftentimes these babies are really not their own but for hire; the city askaris were long ago warned by Nairobi magistrates not be hauling vendors with babies to the court – put the baby down and in a scene right out of Wole Soyinka's play The Road, the woman became possessed like a tormented sorceress and grabbed the askari by the collar.

In a flash, her Sh2,000 worth of merchandise had been scattered on the street, where it had been trampled by pedestrians.

The amount, which a Kenyan MP once boasted is what he uses for his lunch every day, was the capital investment that the vendor had put into the business that day and is a damn lot of money, in any language, for a struggling city dweller whose daily life, to quote the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, is nasty, brutal and cruel and whose only source of income is vending fruits to passers-by.

SOLIDARITY

All the while the travellers to Dagoretti and Waithaka were watching the unfolding kerfuffle between the vendor and the City Inspectorate hoodlum.

The askari's plans of coaxing a bribe from the vendor were unsuccessful and his dastardly act of spilling the vendor’s grapes had gone awry.

The vendor decided to fight back. The rule of thumb is that vendors should never attempt to fight back, and thus suffer in silence.

The askari was now facing an angry, frustrated crowd whose pent-up anger and emotions with their own vicissitudes of an increasingly difficult city life is always looking for somewhere to vent.

The crowd lunged at the askari.

Milling around the askari, whose plan was now to drag the woman to the waiting City Inspectorate van 20 metres away, more for embarrassing him than for not being bribed, the crowd closed in on him and taunted him that "today you’re going to meet your maker if you do not stop dragging the woman”, in the direction of the waiting van.

From the look of things, they were dead serious.

The askari scampered for his dear life – the askaris have learnt how to read the uncompromising public’s mood – and melted into the society.

YVONNE'S ENCOUNTER

Just like the street vendors do when they spot the menacing askaris.

What is the difference between the manhandling of Yvonne Owuor and the street vendor’s mistreatment?

Like day and night. Like heaven and earth. And like Lavington and Lucky Summer.

Owuor met and crossed paths with the askaris in the Lavington posh commune when they were deployed there for the ongoing operations in the city and its environs meant to rid the city of its “vermin”, in the name of hawkers, roadside snack kiosks, street vendors and semi-permanent informal structures, erected everywhere in the city, for income-generating activities by people from the low-income households.

Unless, by pure coincidence, she bumps into the askaris yet again, what are the chances that the author will fall prey to the whims of the “city gangsters"? Nil by mouth, for want of a better description.

HARASSMENT

The street vendor in the CBD, by the very description of her social status, her daily job and where she hails from, meets the askaris, just like the regular police and the Administration Police (AP), every single day of her life.

Vendors are used to daily harassment from the askaris. They have grown immune to their marauding and taunting behaviour.

They have learnt how to navigate around their deathly threats, some of which of course have come to pass.

Owuor’s single encounter with the city’s rugger muffins, in the conurbation of the city where even the rowdy askaris would have to think twice before behaving like they are possessed of Satan, was the talk of the town, through a concerted mobilisation effort marshalled by her friends on social media, the powerful social engine tool that has African ruling political elites on the edge as they ponder what to do with its powerful connecting capabilities.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Its spontaneous, effective and real-time broadcasting of spot news and happenings is threatening to disrupt the processes by which the political elites control their subjects.

The street vendor’s near bout with the askari on one of the busiest streets in this part of the world was nothing to talk home about, it came and went – just like many more after that came and went and still more will come and go unannounced and unnoticed by the powerful social engine tool.

Every day, street hawkers and vendors, men and women, are arrested by the city askaris in the streets of Nairobi, where, if they do not part with Sh500, must spend the night at a police cell, most often at either Central Police Station or Kamukunji, whose horrid reputation surpasses even that of Central.

The manhandling of Owuor was both troubling and unsettling.

The city askaris' behaviours are primordial and uncouth, they understand no rhyme or rhythm, and they do not belong to the civilised world of today.

Yet, it is incumbent upon all Kenyans, wherever they are, whoever they are, to condemn (I am not going to say "in the strongest terms possible") city askaris’ wild behaviours, whether those behaviours are directed at a nondescript street vendor, among the maddening crowd of a dusty street in Nairobi, or a famous author in the less crowded Lavington lavenders.