You keep seeing CCTV videos and hear about people Robbed at Gunpoint but it never occurs to you that one day it might be you on the other side, the one giving the story.
January 11 was just a normal day. I went to work from the club and saw it fit to haul along Nishani my daughter to catch up with her swimming classes. We first dropped my wife at work.
A normal day followed and at 3 pm my wife came and said she “would like to go home early today.” I had another meeting with my friend Rachael and I thought it might actually be a good idea if they go early.
On second thought, I considered the heavy Uner tab to Gikambura plus inconvenience and therefore requested them to hang on…Well mistake number one.
Eventually a few minutes to 7 pm we left the club and headed home. We stopped by Naivas at Broadwalk. My daughter saw these guys sampling this new Yoghurt by Cream Bell and asked we could buy her some. We bought a few more items and headed home.
Fast forward to 200 metres to my final turn I realised there was a Boda boda trailing me closely. It was 8pm so I shrugged off.
“Ah ni wasee wa kijiji wanaingia mtaa”.
Then another one passed. At this point my Wife never saw this as she swears that would have been a serious red flag. We descended down the 300m stretch home discussing how we need to pay the lawn mower guy etc.
At the gate not wanting to bother those at home, my wife left the car, opened the gate and I drove in. As I was waiting in the car, a knock on the window interrupted me.
I stared out wondering if I knew this dark guy who was asking me to move out. I opened the door there in-front of me was a gleaming muzzle of a gun. I know many people say they would shit their pants but my friend when you see a gun nothing even your wiwii works.
For purposes of this story, I will call this guy the Dark Ninja. He realized I had frozen.
“Leta simu na ulale chini!” He barked.
He then pushed me towards the house (now opened) to the seating room. It is then I noticed my wife followed by the second guy I will call Cheers Baba as he had the black puff jacket ya Subaru gang. We were then led to the living room. All this time the only thing I was thinking was “shit my daughter is at the back of the car.”
Cheers Baba then asked, “Wapi watchman, wapi watoto, nani wengine wako huku?”
I told them my daughter is in the car and the Cheers baba guy went for her. Our house-help at this point came out of the bedroom followed by the Dark Ninja who was carrying and teasing my 1-year-old son.
A third frail drunk chap suddenly showed up and I will call him Drunken Master. He had a small toy looking gun but I remembered that heroes are dead and I had no way of telling which of the three guns was real or fake. He attemped to ask my daughter to also lie down but Dark Ninja and Cheers Baba cut him short “wacha ufala!”
My daughter then interrupted them, “Dad why do these guys have dushguns ?”
Her mum jumped in to tell her that they needed to take things for their kids as they don’t have money.
At this point we were left with Cheers Baba as the other two guys ransacked the house. Cheers baba was like, “tumeambiwa kuna pesa huku tupatieni hakuna shida.”
After an initial search they came out with some old laptops and one has one of my Team Building props bag with stuff inside. The Drunken master at this point asked me to stand and give them money and that “wanatafuta tu kama mimi.”
He took me to the bedroom to show him where the cash is and this is what was extremely unnerving to my wife. Dissapointed they huddled us to the bedroom and at this point two riders came in. I offered to borrow money and send it to them. They asked for Sh70,000. I manage to get Sh50,000 and sent to a Francis Njenga registered phone number.
We were the ordered to lie down and wait for them to go and not wail or track our phones or they will come for us. So we lied down and after what felt like eternity I walked out slowly to find all doors still open and nobody in sight.
We let the dogs out (well abit too late) and decided to walk to Shell petrol station nearby to look for help. Along the way we found a bodaboda guy who said he knew the DCI and he made a call to them. We headed back home and found the DCI actually there ahead of us in two vehicles. They took our statements and after a debrief we decided we are staying put we are not running away from our home.
We had a long self blame phase. Of maybe we should have had the dogs out earlier, maybe I should have let my wife go home earlier, maybe she could have closed the gate first before opening the door, maybe we should have had cameras, maybe we should have had house insurance etc etc.
Over the last few weeks we realised missing items from earphones , to work microphones to a brand new bag my wife was gifted by Kayuney Yuneey for Xmass to many many things. They even took two of my wines from South Africa. So guys if you have alcohol in the house just drink it.
However these things are all material and it could have been worse. Probably the worst thing was that the sacrilegious act of stepping into my space and humiliating us in it. Especially from a mans perspective you feel like you failed your people in the basic role of a man which is to protect.
However the greatest beauty was this episode made me realize how strong my wife is. When I asked her what next she was like “hakuna mahali tunaenda”. I wondered what if I was with people of ” Aki sasa Beb tutado”
I realized how brilliant my daughter is as she kept asking me why police haven’t caught the thugs and they didn’t even have masks. The response by the DCI was stellar and it restored hope in us and I hope they catch these m*#****kas.
My only complaint is that as our robbery and other robberies go on around Gikambura the OCS is putting as many as 10 police officers at the Thogoto turnoff on a useless roundabout to check on alco blow and other silly offences while guns get shoved up our a**es at home. National Police Service this is not the way to do things. Reduce the boots on that thogoto turnoff and put those boys on patrol please.
As I close please be careful out there, get house Insurance its going to probably cost you less than Sh5,000. Have good smart cameras, if a boda follows you slam those brakes and let the foolish guy eat your back and most importantly have a spare phone hidden somewhere in your house and mostly between a book. The thugs didn’t touch books lol.
The other thing I would like to say is that we all eventually pay for a broken society. Young men have no jobs, corruption is at an all time high and off course we dont like politics and will not participate in civic duty because we think we are safe.. Nobody is safe at all !
For now all we need is time. I have to go out with my dog to run, I lost my premium garmin watch to the thugs but hey I have my body intact money we can make.
This story is an adaptation from narration by Munyaka Njiru who was is the latest victim to be violently robbed at Gikambura in Kiambu County. We call on the police to do something about the area whose security is decaying each day.
