Stop the making of a class war by boda boda sector

The recent criminal act meted out on a woman motorist on Professor Wangari Maathai Road in Nairobi by rogue boda boda riders drew nationwide condemnation, including by the Head of State. 

While many Kenyans, especially women, classified the incident as gender-based violence, others have called it an act of terrorism that need to be apprehended immediately. 

However, the incident should not be taken as an isolated criminal act. The truth of the matter is that many innocent people have fallen victim to boda boda riders countrywide — only that the incidents are rarely captured by the media. 

School-going young girls have been raped by the riders, vehicles burnt, robberies carried out and violation of traffic rules become the order of the day in this industry among so many other crimes. 

Indeed, the main force that drives this industry is nothing but hatred and a sense of entitlement. However the unruly behaviour that is being witnessed in the industry might not be easily corrected by police arrests and putting the culpable riders behind the bars. 

This is an industry that has been misused by politicians with the young riders radicalised for the main purpose of ascending to political power. Politicians have lied to this group that they are poor because others have wealth and so, to get rich, they must use force against the real and perceived wealthy. That is why they burn innocent motorists’ vehicles even when they are the ones on the wrong. 

Recipe for chaos

One of the false class consciousness mantras that has been preached daily by some of our politicians to players in this sector has been that the people in power do not care about them and that they are the wretched of society. This is, perhaps, one of the reasons why they have to look for any slight opportunity to disobey the rule of law. And that is a rich recipe for a class war in our modern-day society.

The origin of the concept of class war should be between the owners of the means of production and the workers. But that is not so in this particular industry. The politicians have radicalised small-scale traders, the mama mbogas, Jua Kali artisans, students and the unemployed into believing that their suffering has to do with their affluent neighbour and even the one who owns a small car.

If this state of affairs is not urgently addressed, there looms an explosion that even the politicians perpetuating this kind of politics would not contain even if they ascended to power. 

Why is that the boda boda industry in our neighbouring countries, such as Rwanda, has been one of the most successful economic models and yet in Kenya it has become a recipe for chaos and political tool for politicians who want to grab power? How come boda boda riders elsewhere obey the law?

The government should urgently come up with ways and means to help this sector to grow and keep it out of the toxic politics of the day. 

Mr Mwangani is a rural sociology development expert. [email protected]