In the
crosshairs of terror: A first-hand experience as told by Musyoka Ngui
December 2011.Being new in college was a bittersweet experience. We were
the pilot batch of double intake. The pilot project was on the runway and about
to take off.
We flocked the new college
eager to learn anyway. But it was crowded and muddy. Resilient, we did not give
up when we learnt at the eleventh hour that the resident hostels were full and
the nearby non-resident hostels were fully booked. The only place we could get
hostels was eight kilometers away. It was a hustle. Kibugua was far from Chuka.
The college bus subsidized our transport by dropping and picking us each day of
the weekday. It charged only KES. 30 as opposed to the matatu price of KES.100.
And so during the
weekends we were idle. We ate, read and slept. We could roam the village,
admire fertile fields under crops and occasionally visit comrades.
Being a journalist
student, I had a natural knack for reading. I engrossed myself in newspapers:
filled crossword puzzles read features and occasionally wrote simple stories to
benchmark against practicing media writers. In my usual reading I stumbled upon
an advert about the youth in the Daily Nation’s Zuqka pullout. It
called for the young people to submit essays for consideration by an
international NGO. It also dangled the carrot of award money for the finalists.
The overall winner was to get KES. 120 000 while first and second runners ups
to pocket KES. 100,000 and 500,000 respectively.
This being Kenya I
was careful not to take the ad as gospel truth. I thought it was a gimmick or scam.
Of the five questions posed I chose the one dealing with the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs). I researched, wrote, drafted, compiled and delivered
my submissions by hand. I was going to my alma mater and dropped at Nairobi’s
Parklands where the head offices of Amkeni Wakenya are located in Mayfair Suite
building. The receptionist gladly showed me the box full of brown envelops and
I dropped mine and forgot. To say I stood a chance to be considered let alone
to win was an nth possibility given I did not know anybody.
I made my submissions
on January 11 2012-a Wednesday. I was upbeat and confident that I had reached
thus far.
The first quarter of
2012 found me eager to try my hands on something charitable. I wanted to
volunteer just for experience. When an international NGO called German Agro
Action (GAA) and an Italian one CESVI recruited me to assist them in
researching about mother and child nutrition health in our district I kept
myself busy. We travelled to far flung villages by Land Rovers measuring the
babies’ heights and weights as well as dispensing them nutrition tablets and
some pasty concoctions in sachets.
When we were through
with the research we gave out our findings to the Project Coordinator. In
return the two organizations tipped us with KES. 8000 for lending them our
time. The little cash would come in handy during the dry semester of May-
August.
I received an unusual
email from the Youth Agenda, Amkeni Wakenya and the UNDP. You know that they
were informing me that they had shortlisted candidates for consideration
following their participation in the international essay writing competition. I
was not getting the drift until I remembered it has been six months since I
submitted my essay. But I wondered why they wanted my ID and passport photo.
They claimed they wanted to create a profile to ascertain they were dealing
with an authentic person and not a robot. I was reluctant since there was no
guarantee that I was not being duped. I did not want to appear gullible. I
called my parents and friends who congratulated me. However, I warned them that
it was too early to celebrate and it was important to keep my options open for
anything.
In the meantime I did
what I do best: studying for my degree. I kept tabs on the Lady Luck email. I
crossed my fingers that all was well and it was not kidnapers fattening me for
slaughter at a remote human trafficking center.
The semester was not exactly hard. In fact, it was
brief and sealed the diminutive tag of being a fresher. I wanted to be done
with the first year like now if not yesterday.
We lived in the future. Not because we had promises to
live up to. We just did not have any information to make sound decisions. It
was uncertainty. I booked a hostel near
the main campus just in case we were to return for the September –December
academic half year. It was not to be. When the university kept silent about the
whole issue of reporting back we played along. We accepted a second long
holiday and focused on making lemonade from the lemon. We did not complain. We
understood.
When I finished high school I had made certain
contacts in the village community school I taught Kiswahili, Biology and
Business Studies.
I called the principal but she regretted she did not
have the vacancy and in any case she had replaced me. To flog a dead horse, she
warned me that she was in a “high profile” meeting and common sense should tell
me that I should call later. I hanged the phone and heaved a heavy sigh of
resigned relief.
What about my alma mater? Did they have anything for
their son? Help came from an unlikely source. There was this young teacher who
taught us Chemistry and Physics and was “saved”. We hated him with passion for
“selling” us to the deputy whenever we sneaked from the school to go and buy maandazi.
He told me that he had a contact at a sister school
and he could link me up. It was a no strings attached deal that left me ashamed
for thinking he did not mean well for us during our stint at the boys’ school.
I thanked him profusely.
Not only did I find a vacancy but also found a spot
for my pet subject: English and Literature. The principal trusted me to steer
the forth formers to the KCSE as I was better placed since I was fresh from
high school and the set books were the same. I was glad to help the young girls
analyze various works of fiction. I demystified to them the plots, characters,
characterization and the highlighted themes. This gave the principal enough
time to deal with monos that were lagging behind in syllabus coverage.
When the results came out the girls did not disappoint.
On October 26, 2012 I reported to work early since I
was on duty. It was on a Friday. The teacher on duty must ensure that students
take breakfast early, attend morning classes, clean the compound and assemble
for the parade on schedule. I did all that religiously. There was no hitch.
Things ran like clockwork. I had an 8 o’clock class that was a double. 80
minutes is not something you go freestyle without prior preparation. I gave the
candidates plenty of revision questions and set at the back to watch them
tackle. We later revised the questions. I left homework as usual and walked to
the staffroom.
No sooner had I entered than Ms. Kalani told me I had
some calls to return and perhaps some SMSs to write. The calls were from a
fixed number. The landline was persistent but on hitting the 13th
dial it gave up. I had this intuition that it was an urgent matter. To compound
the worry, I had not checked my email for a whole one month.
Lucky, I had enough airtime to return the calls. When
my colleagues realized I was nervous they consoled me and advised me to take
breakfast first. One served me tea and
the other maandazis. I helped myself.
I rang the number. The other end was hesitant. The dialing was taking longer than usual. I
held on. It was a gent on the other end. He was soft-spoken. “I am here at
Panari Hotel with the other finalists and I can’t see you. Are you held up in a
jam or what?” I was lost. I enquired where he works. He said it was Amkeni
Wakenya. He urged me to hurry up and catch up with the other participants at
the awards gala that evening at Sarova Stanley.
I explained my predicament to the Deputy Principal.
She was categorical that it was not yet end month even though it was only four
days shy. However, the kind mother she was she gave me KES. 1500 for the
transport to Nairobi. She also granted me permission plus a two day off. What
more could one ask? It was dream come true. The weekend was beckoning. I could
not resist.
I hurriedly rushed to my rented apartments and stuffed
clothes for the trip even without having a vehicle in sight. From Kyuso to
Mwingi is dusty and potholed. Corrugations on the earthen floor are like ribs.
They shatter the windows of the vehicles and shake the loose seats. Woe unto a
traveler who sleeps in such a rough terrain. They are rudely awakened by a
smash on a metallic frame on the rusted wall of the vehicle. The buses are
crammed, overloaded and lack breathing space. Being only at 10am all the buses
had madly rushed to Mwingi and would come back starting 1pm. It was a transport
system that requires one to wake up early to catch the bus and if they are not
lucky they postpone the journey.
No way was I to call of my trip. I hired a bodaboda
and rode to the main road. I reached the tarmacked Mwingi-Garissa road at 1pm.
The sun was scorching and I was hungry too. When the bus pulled up at the
Tawfiq Supermarket I grabbed a bottle of water and gulped. I bought biscuits
and yoghurt and returned to the bus.
The driver had a short temper. He was impatient and a
sizeable number of passengers were left at Mwingi. One could not help but
notice the high number of new entrants who replaced those who had disembarked.
Just before we reached the bridge near Kanginga
Academy the driver stopped. Some more people were ushered on board. Allegedly,
they had a sack and some briefcases.
The touts ensured that everybody paid up within the
first leg of the journey. The vehicle cruised like a bullet. It was christened
Zafex. There were many Somalis, Kambas, Chinese expats as well as Ethiopians
and Somalia Somalis. There were children too. I cannot quantity the number of
loads on the corridor of the bus but they were many enough to cause a stampede
if anything happened.
I sat near the driver, two rows of seat away. It did
not take long before we arrived at Matuu. There was a long yellow spiky road
block mounted by the officers. On either side of the road they stood
brandishing guns and pistols. The conductors alight. After talking to the
traffic police, they differed irreconcilably.
We were under arrest. We were ordered to disembark. All adults alight
save for the elderly and children. The queues were long and searches thorough.
Others suggestive and utterly inappropriate. We were head counted and found to
be in excess.
The police suspected that the remnants in the bus were
hiding something. Despite the pleas by the crew to have the marginalized inside
the bus, the boots prevailed upon them and everybody was out. We were ordered
to produce our national IDs and passports. Men and women were on different
lines. Curiously, there was not even one lady officer to frisk the women. All
of us were dusted by mean policemen. Suspects started coming out of the
woodwork. Some immigrants lacked IDs while others bore expired passports. Still
forged documents were netted. We had a case to answer. The police were not
convinced that we were clean. “Into the bus”, was the order and we complied
like machines.
We were driven express to Matuu Police Station. There,
we found more police officers in different uniform and with rifles of different
firepower. Other police officers were plain clothed. Time was ticking towards
3pm.
This time round we were ordered to alight with our
luggage and stand in line with the luggage for inspection. I called my parents
and recounted them my fate that had engulfed me. My mother was particularly
worried and every ten minutes she would call me and ask whether I was safe.
I called Amkeni Wakenya. They got tired of me and did
not pick my call. I texted their landline only to learn the hard way that SMSs
do not travel by Telkom masts. Lastly I called my cousin in Nairobi and
furnished him with the details of my email so that he may update me and in case
I do not make it he represent me. Unsurprisingly, the police had no issue with
the Kambas and other ethnic Bantus and Nilotes but were particularly critical
with the Cushites. Entrenched stereotypes were blinding them to turn a blind
eye on some communities and target others in the fight of the war on terror.
Our luggage took longer than usual. The sun was
descending to the horizon faster. I gathered courage and stood up to the OCPD.
I informed him that I had a gala to attend that fateful Friday night and it was
important that I attend in person. He would hear none of it. He threatened to
shoot me and told me off that I should go back to the bus and stay with my
fellow terror suspects. He said we will be taken to court on Monday. That meant
we were to spend Friday, Saturday and Sunday in police custody, a
euphemism for police cells.
The horror of horrors emerged when a small box was
left in the boot unclaimed. The police asked for the owner but everybody shied
away from identifying with it. The Pandora box flew open. Wah! Homemade
explosives! Everybody was shocked. The bus was en route Eastleigh . Question is
who was the target and why.
I saw two police officers fire at a target on close
range. I later learnt they were rehearsing how they will shoot us if we acted
out of orders. We lined up again for another exercise. We did not know which.
By this time the bomb experts had arrived from Thika
and Nairobi. The military was sniffing. The media took us photos and also shot
the bus. Finally the dark night swallowed us like a large whale. I was alone.
As we were on the queue I saw someone who dressed like he was educated. He had
official wear and shining black shoes. I greeted him. He told me he was a
teacher from Dadaab Refugee Camp and he was going to Nairobi. I told him I was
a student teacher at Kyuso Girls’ Secondary School. We exchanged educated jokes
to release the tension of the sad situation we were riveted in.
The security agents wanted to detonate the bomb but
thought otherwise. Maybe they thought they would kill the evidence they had
against us suspects. They nicely sealed the deadly box and put it away. All
this time we were standing. Children cried of pangs of hunger while others
vomited. The elderly were wasted and laid on the ground. We were told to remove
our simcards from the handset, put a sticker on either and surrender our
gadgets to the gluttonous officers “to assist in investigations”. Our
phones were confiscated just like that without a question. That turned out to
be the last time I set my eyes on my phone.
We were led into a building which was high and closed.
We walked past the police offices up to the back. There was high perimeter wall
which was fenced by razor -sharp wires ready to electrocute any breakaway.
We started to record statements immediately. Women
were given the first priority. The Somalis spoke Somali Kambas Kamba and
foreigners watched as Kenyans divided along ethnic lines. Only police
communicated to us in broken Swahili. I enquired from one Ethiopian family
whether they understood Swahili. They gave an emphatic no. We talked in
English. It was a family of four: a mother, a daughter, another daughter, and a
son. They were black as South Sudanese- something I admired in this Africa were
plastic surgery and skin corrosion with cyanide, mercury and other heavy metals
have taken a life of their own. We became great friends with the boy. He told
me they came to Kenya when they were young fleeing war, lived in Dadaab for
some time and now they were going to Nairobi. He was worried that his alien
passport was to expire in three years and he was not ready to go back to Ethiopia.
He wanted to stay in Kenya.
At this time, the interrogation was heated. We could
eavesdrop police detectives shouting at the suspects, suspects denying
vehemently and utter noise ensuing the juggle way.
The hygiene was deteriorating. We shared toilets
Christians and Muslims, children and adults, Kenyans and foreigners. I got an up-close
and personal preview of how Muslims observed strict sanitary hygiene by bathing
their bowels every time they had a long call of nature. Mothers helped children
right before everyone. Children continued to cry for food. Some were suckled by
their mothers. Others were tucked under hijabs and slept hungry.
I prayed with eyes open. I said “Why God? Why Me? Why
Now?” I did not get an answer but believed God was doing something. His ways
are mysterious and beyond human understanding.
Muslims washed feet and bowed to pray for all of us.
At around 4am it was my turn to face the detectives.
They were three officers. I did an oral interview first. The lead questioner
was friendly and keen. He asked me to recount my ordeal up to now. I brought
him up to speed faster than faiba. He asked me about the major loading,
departure and movement of the passengers. I was not helping him. He gave me a
paper to summarize what I had said. I littered the foolscap with ink. He read
through and stamped. He even had a chit chat with me. I was shaking. He wanted to
know why I could not keep still. My teeth were gnashing. I told him it was the
weather.
“Are you afraid?”
“No.”
“Do you know the owner of the abandoned luggage?”
“No afande!”
“What do you do?”
“I am a journalism student on holiday teaching at a
local community school.”
“Good.”
“Thanks.”
“Call the next suspect.”
“Ok. Thank you.”
Saturday daybreak. The police allowed vendors to come
and sell newspapers, snacks and tea. I bought a Daily Nation. It ran a
story about our bus. It even broke the news about the suspects alleged
to be the masterminds of the grenade. I did not know that yet I was mingling with
them for the last 18 hours.
The police were far from being done with us. We were
to be taken passport photos and imprint our fingerprints. It was a tedious
process of decoding the DNA of the terrorist criminals. The non Kenyan Somalis
were separated from us by way of looking at their immunization on the left
elbow. Most refugees, it was alleged, were not immunized for TB and such it was
a walk in the park to spot them. My good Ethiopian friend was taken away from
me.
Later I learned that the driver and the touts were
charged in court for allowing their vehicle to carry weapons. I do not know the
fate of the suspects the police zeroed in on but I saw some being taken back to
Mwingi, allegedly beaten up and allegedly forced to accept they were the
chemical engineers of the grenade. I lost track of the case ever since.
At 11am the grenade was detonated by the military. It
shook the earth and deafened ears. The bus was still in the custody of the
police. The owners were there too.
I admired the immense brotherhood of the Somali
families and leaders. Somali imams and sheikhs visited the affected passengers
all the way from Garissa and Nairobi. They brought foodstuffs, water and money.
They helped everybody. They distributed cakes to us and made sure that no one
was not chewing. They wore white caps engraved mosques. Others donned white kanzus
and brown ones. They drove expensive fuel guzzlers- the kind that Uhuru
recalled from Cabinet Ministers because they were high maintenance liabilities.
Finally we were released at around 6pm Saturday. The
core suspects were left to rot there. While at the station I saw strange things:
chicken thieves, wizards, violent robbers, charmers and those who swore they
were innocent souls. All of them had an untold story.
The police declined to give back our phones until
after two weeks. Those interested were to pick their gadgets form Zafex Company
offices at Eastleigh. I gave up mine. Fellow victims and survivors boarded back
the same Zafex after being freed but I took an entirely different path. I
walked with my two numb feet to Matuu town and begged an MPESA operator to
assist me with his phone so that I at least call home. I had the numbers on my
fingertips.
That evening I went to Nairobi by matatu and found my
cousin had represented me well and in fact I was number one in my category and
the first overall. I was amazed. I was so happy. I pocketed KES. 120,000
because of the power of my pen. The pen had thrashed the gun. Indeed the pen is
mightier than the gun. I invested the money wisely and do not regret never
attending the star-studded awards gala at Sarova Stanley Hotel where Eric
Omondi talked passionately and comically about Musyoka Ngui he only saw on a
Magic Wall beaming with grace.
Thank you God for preserving us, thanks Amkeni
Wakenya, Youth Agenda and UNDP for believing in the Kenyan youth and investing
in them.
I have hung the commemorative plaque in my bedroom to
remind me of my triumph, my encounter with the State security agents fighting
the Al-Shabaab. The laptop I am typing away with is a fruit of the sad chapter
I would want to forget. The second year fees I paid for myself and that
immortalized the effort of my willingness to remember and never take the peace
we enjoy for granted lest we learn the lessons the hard way-through experience,
that ruthless teacher.
The
writer is a 3rd year student of Bachelors of Arts Degree in
Communication and Media at Chuka University. He also blogs at
musyokangui.blogspot.com
