BODABODA 2
In one of my articles (https://lodpost.com/bodaboda-3764), I wrote about bodaboda. In the article I praised these chaps because of the good they do in society. No sooner were the words out of my mouth than they – or a section of them – did something which rubbished the praises I had heaped on them.
On Tuesday March 8th, the media wash ablaze with a clip of the riders harassing a woman in her car. It looked like they wanted her to get off the car. She had different ideas. So, amid and in spite of her screams, they tore off her clothes one after another until, out of sympathy and in a bid to preserve human dignity, the clip was cut.
Then came the anger. Everybody who spoke on TV and in the radio showed immense support for the woman, and, in the loudest and strongest terms possible, hurled insults and curses on the bodaboda guys. The poor bodaboda guys for that matter.
Let it not look like I support what those twenty or so guys did to that woman. I too condemn that. What I find worrying is the blanket justice – or injustice – that has been heaped on the bodaboda riders. The incident happened in one of the sleepy corners of Nairobi. It was done by a handful of guys. Why castigate the whole group countrywide, numbering, I suppose, over a million, because of what few thugs did?
The Kenyan president, in solidarity with the woman and during the celebrations for the international day for women, ordered a countrywide crackdown on these guys. Sure, the net will catch the bad guys. These guys do not have driving licences, their motorcycles are not insured and they do not pay taxes. But these are not what happened on Tuesday 8th.
The crackdown will not achieve much. The desired reforms will not happen. Instead, crime will rise. And corruption will be the order of the day.
It is a fact that the president and the demonstrators (or most of them) do not use bodaboda to move from point A to point B. is it logical for them to call for, and for one of them to pass draconian rules over these guys, their machines and their sector? The mind boggles.
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