The gritty streets of the Mathare informal settlement are some of the most feared places in Nairobi due to the high crime rate.
For decades, Mathare has been the epitome of crime, with many describing it as an ideal breeding ground and hideout for criminals and into whose innards even the police dare not venture.
But, beneath the steely veneer, lies the untold story of thousands of desperate youths struggling to find jobs to better their prospects in life. Restricted by a chronic lack of opportunities, they turn to petty crimes to survive, then graduate to more serious felonies.
Nation caught up with three young men who have lived this story but have since reformed after seeing their colleagues killed and themselves narrowly escaping death.
Peter Ndiboe Wanjiru has a bullet still lodged in his thigh. He told Nation he learnt to drive but the police would often arrest him. Fed up, he eventually joined a gang called T9 , staging muggings and armed robberies.
"We graduated to trafficking drugs from Nairobi to Tanzania and Mombasa. It was during this period that I lost both the nails on my little fingers because I used to inject drugs," he recalls.
This life saw him serve two spells in prison, including six months at the Nairobi Remand Prison in Industrial Area.
"I was part of a team that hijacked a G4S cash-in-transit truck on Outering Road in 2020. The money did not even help us, some of us were locked up and I served a six-month sentence.”
“After that I went back to crime, this time robbing people with knives before I was locked up again and after I got out I survived a gunshot and this time I decided to change," he added.
A pastor spoke to him and helped him get off the streets, then enrolled him into a feeding programme for street children that encourages young people to turn away from crime.
Ndiboe, now a reformed man, is married with three children and is helping to rehabilitate criminals in Mathare.
Kelvin Kiasi dropped out of school in Grade Seven due to peer pressure and joined a criminal gang in Kariobangi, dealing drugs, looting cars and stealing phones and other valuables, before he was approached by Ndiboe, who told him his story and convinced him to give up crime.
"It took me a while to heed his call because I had no other way to earn a living, but after much persuasion I did. He offered to support me, feed me and help me train as a driver, hairdresser and beautician," he recalls.
With these skills, Kiasi still found it difficult to get a job without being a registered member of a sacco, so he started covering for matatu drivers during their shifts. He said the driving jobs he finds often require some formal education, which he lacks.
After scoring 375 marks in his Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) exams at Eastleigh Airport Primary School, Patrick Mwangi lost his parents soon after and was unable to secure a job to support himself.
He was soon introduced to drug use and peddling before turning to snatching phones and other valuables from pedestrians.
Though he has not given up on his dream of completing his education, Mwangi says Ndiboe approached him and kept urging him to get out of crime until he heeded the call and left crime for menial jobs like making chapati for sale and pulling handcarts.
"A politician would come to the gang leader and pay about Sh200,000 for the youth to be mobilised for him to cause mayhem or protest.”
“Some saw this as an opportunity to rob the other participants of their valuables," he recalls.
The National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) had projected that, barely six months after the General Election, organised criminal gangs would re-emerge to revive old grievances and trigger a new political crisis.
This came to pass with the almost simultaneous attacks in which paid gangs torched a church and mosque in Kibera and looted and destroyed properties belonging to former President Uhuru Kenyatta and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga .
Such gangs were seen in action during the Azimio la Umoja One Kenya Coalition Party’s anti-government protests, where some supermarkets, police stations, parts of the Nairobi expressway and other infrastructure were targeted.
Although the National Police Service is yet to release crime statistics, data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) shows a rise in robberies and thefts, which increased from 25,721 in 2021 to 29,948 last year.
The trend continued when the new government took office late last year, with one of the first tasks of Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki being to address the rising cases of violent robberies in Nairobi.
While young people make up more than 50 per cent of Kenya's population, the majority remain unemployed even as the cost of living continues to rise.
Security agencies have been urging desperate youths to be wary of tempting but risky jobs abroad, as seen in the dash to Myanmar that saw some Kenyans trapped in the hands of the military junta committing cyber crimes, while others were trapped in illegal jobs in Saudi Arabia.
According to Citizen Support, a government platform that advocates against violent extremism and terrorism, with little education and lack of employment opportunities, the youth are easily lured into making irresponsible choices in life, some of which end up being dangerous and costly.
