Exit of city’s pick-ups ushers in brighter era
By Editorial.Team, May 17, 2023Yesterday’s decision by Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja to introduce new vehicles for the city inspectorate has been a long time coming. The old vehicles — which looked like they could infect those arrested by inspectorate staff with tetanus — were a terrible eyesore and ought to have been incinerated by this afternoon.
Nairobi is a beautiful city. It is one of the best cities to live in the world. It has one of the most vibrant night scenes anywhere. It is one of two or three cities globally that have a national park within its boundaries. But it had the worst city inspectorate vehicles in municipal history. And not just in Kenya.
Those vehicles were a terror to city residents, more so hawkers and other hapless souls who have fallen foul of council askaris, either for infringing on the long and rambunctious menu of misdeamenours — known and unknown — that city residents are always at risk of flouting with or without their knowledge.
It is a good thing that they will no longer be double-parked in prime streets of arguably one of the three top global cities on account of being the only ones that host UN agencies. Indeed, it is not to be taken lightly that Nairobi is the only city in the global south to host a major UN agency. Such a city deserves — indeed demands — that it be policed using vehicles befitting that status.
The only thing that Governor Sakaja has not done in this regard, and it is the hope of the People Daily that he will do this, is to donate one of those ailing beasts to either the national or railways museums to serve as a reminder of the depth this once green city can sink to if we fail to make it a home of pride under our collective watch.
Never again in this capital must we allow such fear-inspiring monsters, that reek of disrespect for citizens from every broken grill, every worn-out tire, every jaundiced headlight, every flea-infested bench that, in all made the whole of each vehicle far much worse than the sum of its parts.
Neither the city, nor its residents, deserved these caged cells that have given innocent people chills even when the capital was basking in its traditionally glorious sun.
That they will never be fuelled again should send a signal that the city has crossed the Rubicon of bad governance, mismanagement, alienation of its residents and instead declared boldly that it is ready for a new future as a modern, liveable, sustainable, forward-looking city that is ready for business first with its own people and, ultimately, with the rest of the world.