Knife-wielding criminal gangs have descended on the Nairobi Central Business District (CBD), asking members of the public who want to contribute to their 2027 campaign kitty to remember to carry their laptops and wallets to work.
They promise the handover process will be painless upon cooperation because they love peace – and so should you.
However, instead of applauding the petty thieves for launching their 2027 resource mobilisation early, pedestrians of Nairobi and its environs have written to the police, asking them to go out and greet the thugs in a love language only the two sets of armed personnel understand.
It’s not yet clear why Nairobi voters have turned their backs on their fellow hustlers this early. Whoever said Judas Iscariot is still alive might have bumped into him under the City Square footbridge along Haile Selassie Avenue.
Like their counterparts in high office, criminal gangs who steal pocket change from suspecting pedestrians deserve state commendation too. It takes the courage of a wild animal to milk valuables off a hungry man who is ready to die to protect his last 50 shillings of his evening fare back home.
If the hustling man has found a secret formula to relieving his fellow hustlers of valuables without losing his life in the process, his talent should be elevated to giving mentorship talks at COP27 on how to fight climate change in people’s pockets.
Peculiar love affair
It’s a well-acknowledged historical fact that Kenyans have a peculiar love affair with leaders who pinch public money and stash it for personal use. Like religion, we arrive in front of our television sets in time to cheer those in a complicated relationship with public resources. We defend them to the hilt and accuse those who want them jailed for calling our tribe ugly.
That love affair with the corrupt only gets public scrutiny when it comes to petty robbers who are struggling to make ends meet.
The Bible says every human is equal before the Lord and should be measured on the same scale. It’s only fair that a broke hustler relieving a pedestrian of their suffering wallet should receive the same standing ovation as the government fat-cat who drained the billions of a mega-dam and stashed it in their stomach.
Any ordinary Kenyan intending to run for public office deserves all the support they can get. For a long time, we have encouraged those who don’t have money to get out of social media and mingle with real voters on the ground.
While the nature of the mingling is yet to be addressed in a resource mobilisation manual, criminal gangs prowling the Nairobi streets should be applauded for finding local solutions without bothering the government of honest men.
While it’s the constitutional right of every Nairobi resident to demand to be robbed by classy thieves who went to ivy-league schools and speak English off the nose, the law is very clear that freedom of choice has its own limitations that we should respect.
I support the motion currently going on in Nairobi forums that petty thieves need to go back to school and learn more acceptable ways of conducting their business with a little dignity.
If they can register their knife-wielding businesses and start trading with the government, our streets will be safe and we shall vote for them in 2027 for the DPP to drop their corruption charges after winning elections.
The police should continue staying back in their offices and let hustlers interact freely on the streets of Nairobi.
We elected a Godly government that encourages Nairobi residents to reduce their love for alcohol and increase their friendship with the Bible, which says in Isaiah 1:18: “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are red like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.”
