The standoff pitting PSV matatu operators against the Nyeri County Government, over relocating from the town CBD to the Field Marshal Muthoni Kirima terminus, appears to be far from over after Governor Mutahi Mutahi vowed to stay put.
Mutahi has warned that he will never be cowed by threats from those opposing the move to move from the CBD and would ensure the exercise is fully implemented.
“Those who are threatening to defy our directive for PSV matatus to relocate to the new stage found me here and will not thwart my plans to reorganise our town transport system. I will state here categorically that all PSV matatus must relocate."
"That’s a fact. They are threatening to deny me votes, but I am less concerned. We are going to implement our directives the way former Transport Minister John Michuki did in the matatu sector. We cannot retrace our steps now.” stated the County boss during the funeral service of Francis Munyiri at Maragina village in Kieni East.
The deceased was the father John Mwangi Munyiri, one of the 2027 Nyeri gubernatorial aspirants and a former head of Government Relations, Stakeholder Engagements and External Affairs at the Media Council of Kenya.
The current standoff between public transport sector players and the governor began Monday this week catching hundreds of commuters by surprise.
Some of the blocks of rocks used to block the entrances to the three termini located within the Nyeri Central Business District to prevent matatu operators from accessing the terminus on August 26, 2025./KNA
The boycott also affected hundreds of shoppers, who had intended to do their purchases in town as the majority of businesses remained closed in solidarity with the striking drivers.
But the County Government later allowed the disgruntled PSV operators to continue with their businesses from yesterday to avoid inconveniencing scores of learners who were supposed to report back to school for the third term.
But Dr. Kahiga now insists it would not be business as usual beginning tomorrow for the PSV operators, as no vehicle will be allowed to pick or drop passengers within the town CBD.
He said it would be a bad precedent for Nyeri town to allow a chaotic transport sector to ride over normalcy, when other urban areas in the country have functional transport systems that work seamlessly.
“Today I looked the other way since I am a former teacher and knew students were supposed to be reporting to school today. Be as it may, beginning tomorrow morning things will be quite different. And if pursuing this course will lock me out of the gates of Paradise, then so be it. We must be leaders who do things not because of convenience but because it is the right thing to do. And believe me a good leader should never take his people where they want to go, but where they ought to be because where they want to be might not be the place they ought to be,” he pointed out.
The High Court later granted the county government the greenlight to transfer all the PSV matatu to the new terminus.
However, despite the ruling, the operators have failed to agree with the county government on how to proceed including the timeline in which to undertake the transfer.
On Friday last week, the county executive for Transport Eng. Abdil Hanif through a statement posted on the official county government facebook page had notified the general public that all PSV vehicles including Sientas will be operating from Field Marshall Muthoni Kirima Terminus from August 25, 2025.
The statement further stated that following the new directive all the other terminuses shall remain non-operational and also warned that non-compliance to the guidelines shall be construed as a contempt of court directions as well as a violation of County laws.
Last month, Dr. Kahiga had announced halting of the relocation to pave the way for coming up with a transition strategy.
The governor stated that they had agreed to constitute a 22-member committee, which will oversee the transition with the new transfer date expected to be announced on August 5.
“We have discussed various scenarios and agreed that there is a need to sit together and hold further consultations. This must be the rallying call that transition and relocation must be peaceful. It must not disrupt businesses and we hope to get into an amicable situation,” stated Kahiga.
Initially transport operations were to be moved to the ultra-modern terminus in November last year in compliance with a directive issued by the County Executive in charge of Transport and Infrastructure.
But eight long distance matatu operators moved to the High Court in Nyeri seeking orders to block exercise on grounds that the county government had not conducted adequate public participation before effecting the order as enshrined in the constitution.
They also argued that the order showed bias and discrimination on their place of business given that they had been operating in the town’s CBD for 50 years and that the relocation to the new terminus, which held no business prospects, would undermine their right to a decent livelihood.
Further, they termed the order as a threat and an attempt to finish their matatu business and their trade goodwill, given that the county was pushing them to a new and unknown set up far from Nyeri CBD.
Nevertheless, the court dismissed the suite in June this year on the grounds that it lacked merit.
In his determination, Justice Kizito Magare, stated the matatu operators had failed to demonstrate the manner in which the public participation sessions held by the county government on diverse dates between 2019 and 2025 and which their representatives had attended, failed to meet the constitutional threshold.
He also noted that the matatu saccos had failed to demonstrate how the Executive Order by county government to relocate the operators from three bus termini within Nyeri CBD had discriminated against them.
The new bus terminus was expected to address the challenge of endless traffic gridlocks that end up inconveniencing commuters in wasted man-hours.
It was financed under the Kenya Urban Support Programme; a World Bank initiative, whose objective is to spur economic development in counties through improved physical infrastructure development.
The facility features 240 matatu, bus, taxi and Tuk-tuk bays, 1,000 booking offices, 40 parking bays and 98 passenger waiting bays.
In addition, the park hosts 1,000 business stalls, five sanitation blocks, high level water tanks and a modern solid waste chamber.
