Do laws in Kenya only apply to poor people? This is a heated debate in Kenya after a legislator was given a liberal bail term for allegedly shooting a DJ at a popular night club in Nairobi a few weeks ago.
The hypothesis is, was it an ordinary civilian who allegedly committed the same crime he or she would most likely have been denied bail while cooling their heels in one of the state’s guesthouses.
But it seems it is not only legislators who seem immune to the law of the land, corporations too have joined the impunity bandwagon and one such corporation is Vivo Energy Kenya, the distributor of Shell petroleum products after it blocked the public from accessing Mountain View Mall in the Kangemi Area of Nairobi despite a court injunction.
The begging question is why should the Kangemi resident s not join in the so-called “Africa Rising” narrative. Are they fewer citizens because they live in Kangemi and not neighboring Loresho or Kiuna?
Vivo or Shell or whatever they call themselves should not get away with this? But this is symptomatic of the decay in societal justice. Vivo has joined the pack…see below:
In January 2019 Ukweli Usemwe, Uzalendo and Joseph Gitonga have accused Margret Saitoti of blocking an access road linking Mzima Springs Road to Olenguruone Avenue citing that the move illegally inconveniences them.
Four years earlier the Consumer Federation of Kenya (COFEK) has launched a 14-day campaign against Hilton Hotel for blocking public sidewalks for private use.
At the time the federation was seeking 10,000 signatures from the public, threatening to move to Court if the hotel did not comply with its plea to open them. It seems Winston Churchill was right that the further you can look, the farther forward you can see.
