When the first Coronavirus case was reported in Kenya, the country went into a panic mode. The global pandemic had hit home.
The government acted swiftly and came up with measures to help mitigate the spread of the virus. The World Health Organization (WHO) had put into place these measures.
In Kenya, a dawn to dusk curfew was announced by President Uhuru Kenyatta.
This meant that from 7 pm to 6 am no one was supposed to be outside, not unless they were classified as essential service providers that were helping in combating the virus, or they had an emergency. It would later be reviewed to 10 pm to 4am.
President Kenyatta however while giving his address during Mashujaa Day celebration yesterday, said he had lifted the dusk to dawn curfew, the news that was well received by Kenyans.
Those who had encountered curfew in the past months were giving a glaring picture of what curfew was or meant to them- fear was all over.
George, who works in a clothing shop in Nairobi, was one of those who were caught up by the curfew.
He had closed on time, but it was to be a bad day for him.
The door locks would not cooperate, maybe not knowing that things had changed and no one was supposed to act normally for they would be treated abnormally by the curfew enforcers.
Immediately they cooperated he hastily left for his home in South C- Nairobi but was interjected by four police officers.
“They had consolidated another group of about ten people and therefore that was a guarantee that they could not whip all over us. I had a certain relief, but I knew getting out of the situation meant me parting with some money,” he said.
Just like any typical Kenyan when caught on the wrong side they had to craft a plan out and sure, he did part with Ksh400 which was his day’s earning.
Asking him what he felt parting with that amount he told me, “That’s just a small amount of money compared to what it would have cost me when taken to an isolation center or being taken to a cell.”
This spells out the reason it is so hard to fight corruption, for it is systemic in the society.
I, too, was not spared either, on two occasions it did happen to me.
I had traveled to Naivasha for an official trip, but I had forgotten to carry my work ID.
On my return journey, it was already seven when I arrived at Nyeri town, which is fifty kilometers away from home.
I could not get public means of transport and the ones willing to go that route would not get me home, for there were another five kilometers to cover after alighting.
Eventually, a group of five people and I managed to get a taxi which offered to take us three-quarters of the journey and leave us to sort ourselves.
It was a bad night, bearing in mind that I had done some shopping.
The driver kept his promise, but we pleaded with him to at least take us by offering to pay more, but he could not.
We were left in the middle of nowhere at a place called Tambaya, Nyeri.
Lady luck would smile at us, and we eventually got a Good Samaritan who had even offered to drop us on locations near our homes.
He just identified himself as Charles from Othaya and was driving a Toyota double cabin.
Upon reaching Mukurweini, we found a roadblock, and after the normal inquires a police officer by the name of Matthew Makokha offered to take me and another person home using the patrol car.
I finally arrived home. May be, policemen are not the bad people we perceive them to be.
Imposing a curfew was meant to help to make people to observe social distancing and also help fumigate the cities and towns according to government communication.
Many people in Third World countries, especially in Africa live in informal settlement and cannot afford private means of transport.
Therefore, curfew was just an addition to the problems they encountered when commuting to work daily.
In numerous instances, there were reported extreme use of force by police, many telling of tales of how they were whipped.
Unlike me, Cedric Odhiambo a deejay based in Kisumu City would live to remember the curfew.
He had gone for work and offered between saving the little money he had earned and decided to walk, not knowing that his thoughts would land him a whipping of a lifetime.
“They were four of them, and they intercepted me at a junction, they asked me to lie and even before I could get down I had been whipped like a hundred whips, I pleaded with them, but they could hear none of it, they later asked me how much I had, and I gave them my four hundred,” he said.
Thinking about the incident he says and wishes that he had boarded a matatu home. “I lost my money and to top it up I went home with aching joints and muscles,” he lamented.
President Kenyatta offered an apology to Kenyans for the beatings that the police had subjected them to, few days after the introduction of the curfew.
He offered the apology following reports of police brutality as they implemented the dusk to dawn curfew in a bid to curb the spread of Covid-19.
On the other hand, then Police Spokesman Charles Owino acknowledged that indeed there was the extreme use of force by police who we were enforcing curfew rule, but ironically he blamed the public for being in the wrong place during curfew time.
“It was total disregard of the law, total indiscipline. What members of the public did was wrong,” he said in an interview with Kenya’s Citizen TV.
“They refused to follow instructions, they threw stones at policemen — all the same, the policemen should show some form of restraint. But first, I have to particularly blame members of the public,” Owino noted.
Health Cabinet Secretary (CS) MutahiKagwe, during his daily briefings, he has always reminded Kenyans to stay at home urging law enforcers to treat members of the public humanely.
