I don’t know if other Nairobians have also noticed that the number of motor cycle taxis, popularly known as boda bodas, is increasing in the Central Business District (CBD).
Whereas this is a good development in the sense that it is bringing services closer to the people, I think in the overall, it is not the best of developments. If you have ever visited Kampala city in Uganda, then you would understand why I am concerned with this development.
I have seen quite a number of these boda bodas lately outside the Times Tower and it got me thinking of what would become of this city if the operators were to be allowed to introduce their taxis anyhowly in the city centre without close supervision.
I am worried because this is a happening at a time when elections are just around the corner. Kenyans will be going to elections next year between August and December, depending on whether proposed changes to the constitution will pass in parliament or not.
In the past years, we have witnessed how politicians bent rules in order to try and win the favour of various voting constituencies in the country. In the last elections, we saw how President Kibaki went about dishing out new districts when it was not economically viable to do so.
Around the same time, we saw people who had been evicted from forests by the government so that the forests could be conserved being allowed to go back to the forests, against the advice of conservation experts.
In the same vein, hawkers who had been cleared from the streets of Nairobi were allowed to go back to the streets to do business, in the process inconveniencing pedestrians and affecting the businesses of those who are legally doing business and paying taxes to the government.
Even the matatu menace was allowed to rear its head around the 2007 elections when it was said that matatu crews could do business without having to put on uniforms. This was a violation of the very regulations that the government had put in place in order to bring order and sanity in the matatu industry.
I am worried when I see the boda bodas slowly by slowly encroaching into the city centre. Previously, the operators have been plying their trade around Muthurwa market and occasionally bringing their clients to town. That is good and understandable. But allowing them to park in town and to start ferrying passengers around the CBD will be the beginning of our problems.
In Uganda, President Yoweri Museveni facilitated young men to acquire boda bodas as a way of empowering the young men economically. That was brilliant. The initiative empowered the young men economically while winning him votes. But allowing them to do their business in the city of Kampala was a big blunder that the government of Uganda has not been able to deal with satisfactorily.
Today if you go to Kampala, you will be shocked at how the town is disorderly from the way the taxis run in between motor vehicles. You can be easily knocked down if you are walking on the streets. Generally, there is no order in that city as far as the flow of traffic is concerned. The reason for this is that the taxis were introduced without there being accompanying infrastructure being developed for them.
Apart from creating disorder in the city centre, the number of accidents is likely to increase if the boda bodas are allowed to run in the city of Nairobi. Police reports from different parts of the country have already indicated that this is true in places where the boda bodas are operating. Bringing them into the city centre would be a disaster.
I am not against the creation of employment by allowing the boda bodas to operate freely. What I am against is that economic empowerment should not be done at the expense of maintenance of order and safety in a city like Nairobi and in a country like Kenya that is aspiring to be a second world economy by 2030.
I am afraid that this is what may happen in Nairobi since the current town clerk of Nairobi has declared his intention to run for office of governor of Nairobi in the forthcoming elections. And as we have seen previously, once one gets into elective politics, all wisdom and caution is always thrown away for the sake of gaining political mileage.
I hope Philip Kisia reads this.
NB: An edited version of this article appeared in the Star newspaper of 12th October, 2011 as ‘Letter of the Day’ under the headline ‘Boda bodas in CBD a recipe for disaster’
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