How Dandora became the crime capital of Nairobi

Evans should not be alive. Many of his age mates are either dead or on death row in various prisons in Kenya. That is the sad tale of many children born in Nairobi’s Dandora estate. Their fate is almost pre-destined.

At eight years old, Evans, a reformed gangster, lost both his parents, becoming an orphan living in one of the most notorious neighbourhoods in Nairobi: Dandora. We could not publish his full name because he would be stigmatised.

He, together with two siblings, was taken in by his grandmother, who lived in a single room.

Life was not easy. Food was a luxury. In Standard Two, he was either selling second-hand clothes or mending people’s shoes to make a few coins to help his grandmother put food on the table.

“I’m born and bred in Dandora. My parents died when I was in Class two, so I had to survive with my grandmother. I have two siblings. My grandmother was very poor. So to help her, I started selling skirts and later look for cobbler’s jobs,” recollects Evans.

With his grandmother alive, life was fine for him. However, she died three years later. This turned him into one of the dumpsite scavengers, going through mounds of garbage looking for something to eat and anything else he could sell.

They would wait for lorries from the airport dumping leftover food supplied to airlines.

Criminal world

By the time he was in Class 8, Evans had joined the criminal world.

“It was not my wish.It was just survival instinct. I had to survive. I could then see that the most successful people in Dandora were thugs,” he says, explaining that it was not his wish to do so, but observing that only thieves seemed to be well off in the neighbourhood.

“Only thugs could afford blings. Life in Dandora back then was hard. Most of my friends have died either through mob justice or police bullet.”

The friends he grew up with who had better lives than his, used to go on “rounds”. This is the code word for setting out to rob someone or a place.

The friend who introduced him to the gang was shot dead by police a few years later.

During the day, Evans was just like any other teenager going to school. But he was a robber by night. However, concentrating on class work was hard, as he replayed the events of the night while in school, he says.

Criminal gangs in Dandora are defined by territories, with different names to identify them.

The crime world, Evans says, is governed by rules as much as superstition. One of the things they believe is that if one takes a life, their lifespan is in turn shortened.

Evans, therefore, tried as much as possible not to use a gun on the many “rounds” he took part in.

Two days before sitting the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination, two of his fellow gang members were shot dead by police.

For gangsters, he says, it is not easy getting out of the lifestyle. This is because when a person starts stealing, it becomes a habit that is hard to stop.

High levels of poverty, unemployment and idleness are some of the factors that are pushing youths in Dandora into a life of crime. For some, a life of crime is the only birthright they have – it is passed down the family. The children of criminals automatically join the ‘trade’. Others are forced into crime by circumstances, while others join because they yearn for material things – fashion, jewellery and gadgets – which their parents’ modest lives cannot provide.

With most families living in single rooms, the densely populated Dandora has become synonymous with criminal gangs.

“Population increased and resources decreased,” explains the 29-year-old.

And even with the interventions of security agencies and NGOs out to change the narrative of this suburb, it appears to be a Herculean task.

But Dandora was not always the capital of crime.

Charles Gachanga, a community leader in Dandora, has lived in the neighbourhood for 45 years. His earliest memory of the estate is that of a place where gunshots were unheard of. It was a pristine, peaceful and thriving estate that was among the most sought-after places to live in in Nairobi.

However, he says, crime started in 1984 after most companies around Dandora closed down, leaving hundreds unemployed.

“I remember back in the 1980s, Dandora was a very clean place, with no garbage lying around. Those companies that closed operations or took their business elsewhere include Kenya Power, Kenya Planters Cooperative Union (KPCU) and Kenya Cooperatives Creameries (KCC), among other companies,” recalls Gachanga.

He also recalls City Council workers would sweep the streets and fix the street lights, but stopped from 1984, and slowly, Dandora transformed from an estate to a crime-infested slum.

He chronicles the evolution of lethal force used by gangsters.

In the beginning, muggers would take advantage of the darkness, because of the broken street lights, to rob anyone that was about, hitting them on the head with metal bars. The gangs later moved to knives, before graduating to guns.

Dandora, therefore, became the go-to place whenever business persons wanted “dirty jobs” done. This would mostly involve threatening or killing a business rival.

Payments for these jobs ranged from Sh50,000 to Sh200,000 sometimes, even more, depending on the nature of the job.

This was a goldmine to most of the youths of Dandora. The offers were too good to resist.

Stage 41 was one of the most feared places in Dandora, says Gachanga. The criminals there did not even wait for darkness to attack.

“Most of my friends have died. One can count my age-mates – the people I grew up with.”

Mungiki Gang

Then at the turn of the century, the Mungiki gang invaded Dandora.

Mungiki had started as a Kikuyu sect that claimed it wanted to go back to the ways of their ancestors. So the members snorted snuff and performed rituals.

They also had their women circumcised, going against the government ban on female genital mutilation.

The sect also agitated for land, and claimed the members – in their thousands -- were descendants of freedom fighters.

However, it quickly morphed into an extortionist gang known for its brutality, that demanded “protection” money from residents and businesses and unleashed mayhem at the behest of politicians during elections.

“Mungiki set base in Dandora. You would meet a young man and he would tell you ‘You are smartly dressed. So, every end of the month, you’ll be giving me Sh2,000’. And you’d wonder who this was, telling you to part with your hard-earned money, and dismiss him. However, true to his words, at the end of the month, the young man would show up with a gang and if you did not do as they asked, they would chop you up like sukuma wiki (kales) and they feared no one,” says Gachanga.

With the backing of a larger organisation and the fear that the Mungiki gang had instilled in most Kenyans, most youths found a fresh impetus to brazenly harass the residents. Small scale traders were also required to pay the illegal fees.

“I remember those boys who had joined Mungiki beheaded a policeman. This was when the police were cracking down on the gang. After the beheading, the police retreated from Dandora. This made the gangsters more brazen, and they wanted to be associated with Mungiki members, whom they described as being more powerful than the police,” says Gachanga.

The Dandora dumpsite also has a hand in the rampant crime in the estate. In 2013, a man was killed in a gunfight as two gangs fought for control of the dumpsite.

The dumpsite, Mr Gachanga says, is a “lawless jungle” where criminals hide their guns and conduct numerous illegal activities.

Apart from that, it is also a source of revenue and any gang that claims territory at the dumpsite becomes the kingpin.

Reformed

But all is not lost. At the Dandora Community Justice Centre, James Alaman and his colleagues are busy talking to a group of young people.

Their small office in Dandora Phase Two is always a beehive of activity.

“Having grown up in Dandora, I have first-hand experience of what teenagers or young adults go through. It is a tough life. Most of the youth here are forced to grow up fast, helping their guardians to put bread on the table from as young as five years. Issues like use of excessive force by police towards the youth, rape, and gender-based violence are just some of the few evils that we are trying to eradicate,” says Alaman.

But the journey has not been easy.

Alaman admits that back in 2017, when they officially launched the community centre, they were met with a lot of resistance, both from the locals and police.

“A section of the locals did not understand why we advocated criminals to be arrested instead of them being dealt with by the public through mob justice. In their eyes, these were the people who probably had stolen from them or killed their loved ones during robberies, hence ‘an eye for an eye’ made a lot of sense to them,” he explains.

Over time, it was evident to the residents that the work of the initiative was giving voice to the people and presenting opportunities.

“I am happy to say that we have seen a huge difference, especially among young people. We have a good number of reformed criminal gang members. They are now involved in most of our community work. Our counselling sessions have helped women going through gender-based violence, and even rape victims,” says Alaman.

Speaking to the Nation on phone, Buruburu Police Commander Adamson Bungei says that although crime has been a major problem in Dandora, it has significantly gone down.

There is police presence on the ground with more interactions between the public and police.

“Whatever happened before was just an oddity. Dandora has gone through phases and unfortunately, crime was a part of it. But as police, I can say that we have come with a narrative to change the story,” says Bungei.