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Matatu strike that exposed Kenya's fossil fuel, and the alternative that wasn't ready
A man ties his shoelaces as others walk during a strike by public transport operators driven by rising fuel costs, linked to global supply pressures following the war in Iran, in Nairobi, Kenya May 19, 2026.
On the morning of Monday, May 18 2026, Nairobi woke up and walked.
Bus stages that normally overflow with noise and negotiation stood empty. Matatus, the backbone of daily movement for millions of Kenyans, had gone silent.
So had buses, bodabodas, and ride-hailing vehicles, all grounded by a nationwide strike called by the Transport Sector Alliance in protest against record fuel prices.
Diesel had just hit Sh242.92 per litre in Nairobi, its highest price in Kenya's recorded history, after a single-cycle jump of Sh46.29, the largest increase in at least 21 years of price data, while petrol sold at Sh214.25.
Hundreds of thousands of commuters were left to either walk to work or stay home. Schools closed, and supply chains stalled.
A public service electric bus passes a police officer near Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi on November 1, 2023.
Electric buses, a fleet that has been growing steadily and is routinely cited as the country's answer to fossil fuel dependency, were also nowhere to be seen.
The reason for their absence is uncomfortable. Most of Kenya's electric buses operate through the same SACCO structures that called the strike. Super Metro, for instance, which operates some of BasiGo's electric fleet, was among the operators that confirmed suspension of services.
It is the central irony of Kenya's transport moment. The country has spent three years building an alternative, and when the fossil fuel system buckled, the alternative buckled with it
The cost that never goes down
Jeremiah Nyangweso has been riding a bodaboda in Imara Daima since 2016, when he left a security job at G4S to go full-time into self-employment.
"I applied for a loan under the G4S SACCO called Nyati to acquire a motorbike," he said. "I worked while servicing that loan until I finished it and I realised self-employment was more beneficial than employment."
His livelihood, like that of hundreds of thousands of motorcycle riders across Kenya, runs on petrol. Every monthly EPRA pricing cycle lands directly in his operating costs. There is no buffer.
The government's explanation for the current prices points to the Iran war. Kenya, which imports every litre of refined fuel it consumes, mostly from the Gulf, absorbed the shock in full.
But a review of Kenya's pricing history by Africa Check found a pattern that predates any war: pump prices here tend to rise fast when global oil prices increase and fall slowly, if at all, when they come down. The Iran crisis amplified an existing structural problem.
That structural problem has a price tag. Kenya spends approximately $5 billion annually on fuel imports, one of the largest drains on its foreign exchange reserves. It has no domestic refining capacity. Every shilling paid at the pump is partly a payment for a vulnerability built into the system decades ago.
The city that was never built for walking
For Nyangweso, the fuel crisis connects to a frustration that is older and quieter than any strike.
"Kenya is pushing for electric mobility and non motorised transport, but many roads still lack proper footpaths," he said. "Existing footpaths and cycling lanes are not enough."
On the day of the strike, millions of Kenyans discovered exactly what he means. Walking to work is not simply inconvenient in Nairobi. In many areas, it is dangerous. Footpaths are incomplete, narrow, or absent altogether. Cycling lanes do not exist in most parts of the city. Pedestrians share space with vehicles on roads that were not designed with them in mind.
Nyangweso points to a footbridge along Mombasa Road near General Motors as an example of infrastructure that excludes rather than includes.
"We have disabled people," he said. "A footbridge like the one at General Motors along Mombasa Road does not have accessibility for wheelchair users. They are forced to use the road."
He also questions the logic of where infrastructure gets placed. "You can find a footbridge built where people are not crossing, while dangerous crossing points are left without one."
The alternative that is not yet an alternative
Kenya's electric mobility sector has grown significantly over the last few years. Basi Go, the main electric bus manufacturer, started with two pilot buses in Nairobi in early 2022. By August 2025, it had deployed its 100th electric bus across Kenya and Rwanda. Production has since scaled to 20 buses per month from its assembly line at Kenya Vehicle Manufacturers in Thika.
The country's total registered EV count reached approximately 35,000 by the end of 2025, according to the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA), though the vast majority are two-wheelers.
According to Kenya Power estimates, an electric motorcycle can travel 80 kilometres at a cost of about Ksh 24, compared to roughly Ksh 450 for a petrol motorcycle covering the same distance.
Logistics companies have reported fuel and maintenance savings of up to 70 per cent after switching to electric fleets. Off-peak charging under the e-mobility tariff is available at Ksh 8 per kilowatt-hour, about 70 percent cheaper than standard electricity rates.
A MetroTrans Sacco electric bus navigates Kenyatta Avenue in Nairobi on Friday, December 26, 2025.
Wanjiru Kamotho from BasiGo put the structural argument into perspective. "The recent instability in the Gulf region has reminded African countries and the world of a familiar yet painful vulnerability. Oil-dependent economies face recurring crises they cannot control."
But the strike exposed where that argument hits its limits. Kenya currently has roughly 100 to 130 electric buses in service in a city that moves millions of people daily. BasiGo says it has orders for over 500 more and a target of 1,000 by 2027, still not enough to move the city's daily commuters.
For Nyangweso, who watches both worlds from the road, the electric motorcycle still has a weakness that investment alone has not solved.
"The disadvantage of electric is the battery," he said. "Let's say you are left with a few kilometres and there is no swapping point. If you get a customer going to Machakos or Kitui and there is no swapping station along the way, you cannot take that client."
His petrol motorcycle, for all its exposure to volatile pricing, can go anywhere there is a fuel station. The electric alternative cannot yet say the same.
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