Let me tell you a story: It is the story of how the city of Nairobi has gone to the dogs. It is the story of a city that is gradually degenerating into a lost city. It is the story of how street vendors and hawkers have taken over the city centre and its environs. It is the story of how about two weeks ago, a brawl ensued between a female street vendor and a passenger boarding a matatu that plies the Kasarani-Mwiki route from Tom Mboya Street.

The passenger had asked the vendor to move her wares to create way for him to pass and board the matatu. It was around 7pm. It is possible the vendor had had a bad day – she probably had not sold much, perhaps the city askaris had extorted from her, or she had left her house in a foul mood after quarrelling with one of her neighbours.

Whatever the case, the fury with which she lunged at the man left all of us agape. She asked the man whether that was the only place he found fit to walk on. Like a woman possessed, she rallied the other women vendors to insult (male) passengers, “who think they own Nairobi pavements”.

NEW SUPERMARKET, NEW OPPORTUNITY

She spit expletives that I have only heard being used on a notorious brothel on the same street. She capped those swearwords by saying she voted for Mike Mbuvi Sonko so that she could, without being questioned, sell on the streets and pavements of Nairobi. Sonko is the Nairobi County governor.

Three weeks prior to this incident, I had gone to sample the new Naivas supermarket on Moi Avenue, which now occupies the building that formerly housed a branch of Barclays Bank. No sooner had the supermarket been opened than it attracted street vendors, who are now spreading their wares right in front of the supermarket’s mouth.

I wondered: Were these new vendors people who quickly smelt an opportunity or seasoned Nairobi vendors who had moved there to colonise a new territory? Whichever the case, the vendors are now “accosting” the supermarket’s new clientele with reckless abandon, as they peddle their agricultural wares. Woe unto you if you happen to step on them as you negotiate your way into the supermarket’s entrance.

NO MORE SECURITY

Street vendors, wherever they move to, tend to attract glue-sniffing boys and girls, idlers, lunatics, ne’er-do-wells and petty thieves who will always pose a security threat – real or imagined. In front of the supermarket, there is the guard rail that runs along Kenyatta Avenue and faces the building. Can you imagine layabouts have taken to sitting on the rail as they watch shoppers enter and leave the supermarket? Trust me, this could never have happened when the bank was the resident tenant.

Because the building hosted a bank, and even though the street lights did not work most of the time, the area was safe because of the presence of security officers, who included regular police. Never mind, the building is next to the filthy, pot-holed Kimathi Lane that is home to loafers and street families.

Yet, it is not as if the bank’s premises have not had their fair share of the street vendor menace. Of all the banks in the central business district (CBD), Standard Chartered Bank has borne the worst brunt of the street vendors’ “we ran this city” attitude. Standard Chartered-Moi Avenue branch has a large, front empty space facing the bank’s entrance.

BEGGING HAVEN

Street vendors have unabashedly occupied all that space, spreading their wares right onto the bank’s steps. Its sister branch on Kenyatta Avenue has not done any better: Although it has not been invaded by street vendors, it is now home to street families, who have turned the corner building into their begging haven.

Senior Standard Chartered staff confidentially told me how the bank approached City Hall and sought permission to install potted plants in front of its offices, as a way of supplanting the street vendors, who have become a security threat not only to its clients but also to its very own staff, who feel threatened by the mob of the vendors mixed with hoodlums perambulating around the building. City Hall allegedly refused and claimed the street vendors were important votes and were not to be antagonised.

All the CBD supermarket entrances have been invaded by street vendors, who every day push their limits and tax the supermarkets’ customers’ patience by ensuring they have nowhere to step on. Did Sonko, when he was campaigning, remember to remind street vendors and hawkers that pavements belong to pedestrians? The city bylaws, if I am not mistaken, have not been revised. Why then have street vendors taken to harassing pedestrians? Impunity.

SONKO BREATHES FIRE ON IGATHE VISIT

Two months after Sonko was sworn in as the second Nairobi governor, his deputy, Polycarp Igathe, apparently visited Viwandani ward. There is a Catholic-sponsored primary school on Lunga Lunga Road called St Elizabeth that local street vendors and hawkers have been blocking, and so, Igathe wanted them out. He also wanted the operations of the oil trucks queuing to refuel at the Kenya Pipeline Company streamlined. This is an area Igathe knows well, having been a Vivo Energy oil company boss.

When Sonko heard of his deputy’s solo visit to Viwandani, he breathed fire. “How dare you go to harass my people? Those are my votes,” said a supposedly miffed Sonko as he confronted his deputy. This was the first of the many manifestations of differences between Sonko and Igathe over the county’s policy issues.

At this point, I will pose the question: Is this city under the control and whims of street vendors and hawkers? Has Sonko been captured by the street vendors and hawkers alike?

TIRED OLD SONGS

The governor, in a recent interview, spoke of “acquiring a number of city markets” for resettling vendors and hawkers. What an odd old tale to tell Nairobians. Where are these markets and when will they be “acquired?” Sonko also said in the same interview, “Street children will be relocated from the CBD”. To where, I ask? Another tired old song belted to Nairobians.

But if the menacing street vendors are not scary enough, Nairobi is today also the capital city of beggars – able-bodied and disabled, stationary and roving – in East Africa. The beggars are all over the CBD, including City Hall Way, Wabera Street and even Harambee Avenue. The CBD is replete with beggars, placed on strategic avenues and corners. There are also roving ones, who are moved in rickety wheelchairs, begging from pedestrians, restaurants and office outlets.

Why does there seem to be a sudden influx of beggars? Where did all these beggars come from? Why have they even infiltrated posh suburban areas such Hurlingham, Parklands, Upper Hill and Westlands, placed on pavements from 6am and collected at 6pm?

BEGGING IS 'BIG BUSINESS'

I went to seek answers from two county officials. “The beggars in this city are a big business. But the unfortunate thing is that many of these beggars were ferried from a neighbouring country a couple of years ago. Those beggars are not Kenyans,” said the county officers. We shall not disclose what neighbouring country the beggars are supposed to have been transported from, for now.

From the dumping of the beggars, to Tom Mboya Street being converted into a dumping site. Just what is happening to this city? Tom Mboya Street now looks like a disused opencast mine. More than a month ago, ballast, cabro stones, pavement blocks and sand were dumped on the street’s pavements, especially in the area around Fire Station. Culvert blocks were also dumped in the middle of the road, giving the impression the road was being worked on. And this is the CBD.

NATION ARCHIVES YARD 'GRABBED'

At the Ambassadeur Hotel stage and behind the National Archives building, pavement blocks were dumped there and today idlers and social misfits use them as resting places. The Archives is a government building that hosts the Ministry of Sports. Even ministry officials told me (strictly on condition of anonymity) that their spacious frontage, which ought to serve as a parking lot for ministry officials’ vehicles and visitors, had been “grabbed” by the cantankerous street vendors, who operate with such great impunity that one time they told the agitated government officials to mind their own business, which is supposedly confined inside the “museum”.

Huku nje ni kwetu, na Sonko alisema tuuze kwanzia saa nane (“Outside here is our territory, in any case, Sonko decreed that we can sell as from 2pm”).

Could the pugnacious, rowdy, untamed and vexatious street vendors have been one of the reasons that made Deputy Governor Polycarp Igathe to flee City Hall?

Mr Kahura is a senior writer for 'The Elephant', a Nairobi-based publication. Twitter: @KahuraDauti