Murang'a's Kayole estate, where police wink at bold bhang dealers
Suspects look on as police officers at DCI head offices along Kiambu road in Nairobi remove bhang from two lorries after they nabbed it along Moyale-Isiolo road on November 14, 2020. The officers have the names of all the eight area bhang traders and have documented how supplies come from Moyale via Makutano town and later along the Sagana-Murang'a road, but there seems to be no will to decisively order the annihilation of the network.
Murang'a town's Kayole estate has gained notoriety as a bottomless pit for the area’s children.
It is home to bold bhang dealers and smokers, a place where police seem to be cheering them on.
The estate that came into being in 1976 sits on county government land and has about 30 cubicles measuring about 10 by 10 feet allocated to individuals who rent them out.
Each cubicle has tenants paying Sh1,000 a month. Their current market value is Sh150,000 each.
Some of the cubicles do not have tenants because of the insecurity in the surrounding area. The vacant spaces have been turned into hiding places for the town's crooks.
Others have been transformed into khat and alcohol enterprises where idle youths are seen loitering late in the night.
The estate is supposed to be an open-air market which in 2013 the county government attempted to allocate to traders, but violent confrontations ensued between land grabbers and residents, sabotaging the exercise.
In 2008, then area District Commissioner George Natembeya (now Trans Nzoia Governor) oversaw the demolition of high-rise buildings constructed by the grabbers.
This environment made it easy for bhang dealers to capture the estate. One of them is said to run a wholesale supply chain right under security officials’ noses.
The officers have the names of all the eight area bhang traders and have documented how supplies come from Moyale via Makutano town and later along the Sagana-Murang'a road, but there seems to be no will to decisively order the annihilation of the network.
Bhang smoking zones
So daring are the peddlers and their customers that they have allocated themselves bhang smoking zones at Grogan, Sagana stage, near Mbiri Primary School, near River Muraru on the way to Mjini Estate and Mumbi grounds.
The other favourite smoking zone is along the way leading to the two public mortuaries.
Some street peddlers of the drug fake mental instability to progress the trade.
"We are used to the bhang-smoking culture in this town...We have come to accept it as one of the ingredients of our life. What is alarming, though, is the future that is being destroyed. Most of the consumers are students of both genders in town-based educational institutions," said a tout at Mugoiri matatu terminus.
Murang’a county commissioner Karuku Ngumo. Ngumo said he has received many intelligence reports about the bhang network and said the tips are important in helping to measure how the menace is being addressed.
“One common feature of the town,” he adds, “are students hollering like hoodlums in a ghetto, hopping from one bar to the other late into the night, defying closing hours and wasting their present and future with total abandon.”
At the terminus is a gambling den that operates full-time, with clients puffing on the drug. Police are alleged to collect Sh200 every evening from the managers as a protection fee.
Stoned and emboldened by lapsed security, the youths proceed to roam the town and its environs, mugging and assaulting their victims. They also break into businesses and homesteads in villages near the town.
Drama
The bhang masters of the town are not without drama. On September 18, a conflict between two peddlers nearly resulted in one of them getting lynched. One of the dealers said to operate in Kirinyaga county had allegedly travelled to Kayole estate to demand a Sh10,000 bhang consignment that he had allegedly paid for but it had not been delivered a week later.
The scene was near the Murang'a to Sagana, Nyeri, Embu, and Kutus main PSV stage.
"You either give me my bhang or my Sh10,000, or I drive off with your motorcycle...you cannot con me like that knowing too well that I had borrowed the money to deal with you," the young man was heard shouting at the supplier.
Police intelligence reports indicate that bhang supplies come by road from Moyale and are offloaded at Makutano town, Kirinyaga, Embu, Machakos, and Murang'a counties' common border from where peddlers buy it wholesale for the retail market.
As the two suspected peddlers tussled, they attracted a crowd of local peddlers who got their supply from the accused Kayole man. They turned around and accused the one demanding his money back of attempting to steal the motorcycle. Were it not for police on patrol intervening, the young man would have been killed.
"We were notified of unrest in the area and our officers rushed there...we encountered a mob that was attacking a young man, accusing him of trying to steal a motorcycle. We saved him and arrested him," Murang'a East sub-County Police Commander Mary Kasyoka said.
She said the man who was claiming to be the victim of the alleged attempted motorcycle theft had been arrested the previous day on suspicion of bhang peddling and was out on a police cash bail.
County Commissioner Karuku Ngumo said he has received many intelligence reports about the bhang network.
"We are committed to battling the menace. We have been passing the tips to the relevant security departments. I will ask for progress and status reports to identify where the problem is. Meanwhile, I urge members of the public to continue sending in the tips," he said.
He said the tips are important in helping to measure how the menace is being addressed.
