In an article I read not long ago, Nairobi was rated as one of the best cities in the world. The article insinuated Nairobi is among the top five best cities in Africa, as well as a leading tourist destination.
I don't know when the survey was carried out but it must not have been the Nairobi I know and live in. I have little comparison to make on cities in Africa, for other than Nairobi, I have only been to Kampala.
However, I have traversed other cities and satellite towns outside Africa for me to heap unwarranted praises on Nairobi. Our is a decaying city, sliding into the abyss, a jungle of madness and mayhem.
The city today is unfriendly and chaotic. To me the city has relocated to Upper Hill area, with it's boundary in Moi Avenue. Beyond Moi Avenue to River Road, Kirinyaga Road and its environs, one is in a ghetto city.
Here, you are at the mercy of everything, from speeding motorcycles going against traffic, totally in disregard of traffic rules, to matatus screeching to a halt, making illegal turnings, right in plain view of policemen who play blind.
The police here are like matatu touts, joyriding and hanging on PSV with intent to greet the conductor, alighting at the next junction with joy, after bribe money has changed hands, blinding them.
The city cops and Kanjo habit of extortion is too brazen to be seen anymore as corruption. The way they demand for it, it looks official. In downtown, you even risk being mowed down by men on wheel carts, sometimes riding on their carts as if they are mopeds. They are unruly and appear high all the time. The police don't bother with them, neither do they mind mkokoteni hurtling the wrong way, risking lives. They are after matatus, their cash cows.
The streets are a nightmare for pedestrians, strewn with merchandise displayed by hawkers. Today they even sell stuff on the road, pushing vehicles to a single lane. Vehicles have to share the narrow spaces with pedestrians.
Woe unto you if you are disabled and require special access to move. Those on wheelchairs and crutches risk breaking more limbs on these streets. I recently found a blind lady struggling to wade through this madness, to access her matatu, a walk from around Tom Mboya stage to Archives.
I volunteered to guide her, holding her hand as she used her cane too to aid her movement. The pavements were inaccessible and the roads too crowded and dangerous, as motorbikes zoomed like hornets and matatus driven recklessly as if in a competition.
We should enrol them for the Safari Rally. I pitied the lady, people of her kind living with severe disability, children going to school in the CBD on their own and the elderly. They are unwelcome in this hostile jungle.
We need a cultural shift in the way we drive, to accommodate people with special needs living amongst us. Not all pedestrians have sight or can hear. We drive and speed as if all people around us are able-bodied with similar reflex patterns.
Driving schools and law enforcers need to bring this to the attention of drivers, to employ extreme caution, particularly on congested streets like Nairobi's. Motorbikes are vehicles too and I don't know why they are allowed to violate traffic rules, riding on pavements and on the wrong side of the road.
Sanity needs to be restored in this city to manage the spiralling chaos.
