NAIROBI: This week, eight politicians were herded into police cells over hate speech. This raised eyebrows, mainly because the ignominy of spending a night in police cells is the preserve of garden-variety countryside thugs. We can’t comment on the charges, but I must point out that the whole thing made my mind hark back to the 90s. First, to the horror of my first overnight sojourn in a police dungeon. Those dens were tinier, darker and dingier.
And though I’ve never been in remand, I’m told Uncle Moodi Awori, when he happened on the scene, gave them a human face.
Ah, today, I hear they even let in some light through some high-placed ventilation. Back in the day, there were not even old, dusty and moth-eaten rugs for a blanket, or any mildewed length of sponge for a mattress. You simply hunkered down on the cold floor. The small room could hardly pack ten people, but on a good evening it carried a cocktail stench of stale sweat, tobacco and illicit brew from tens of unwashed drifters. A cop would grab you by the collar and hurl you inside like a bag of potatoes, guffawing gleefully as you hobbled over a mass of cursing and kicking humanity curled up in all manner of ungainly positions. If you came in late, the only available spot would be near a small metal drum with a hollowed top. In this ‘toilet’, tens of guests of the state relieved themselves to overflowing. Man, if today’s cells stink, then we cannot find fitting adjectives for the stench of the 90s’ cells. The nightmare of it explains why even innocent people ran like the prairie wind and disappeared into maize plantations at the sight of any vehicle resembling the dreaded Black maria.
The ordeal of the eight also reminded me of the days of the monarchical chiefs. The chief had powers to demand harambee contributions, and to force people to go and clap obsequiously after the District Officer had finished reading the President’s speech, even when most villagers could not tell what the damn thing was all about. At that time, in my home town, there happened to be a man called Danger Man. The old man with bloodshot eyes was a self-appointed servant of the state. Perhaps to feign authority, he wore patched-up khaki shirts and pants that resembled an administration officer’s uniform, complete with a makeshift whistle holder and ballet.
Danger Man had made it his duty to ensure that all the mentally-challenged people who roamed the town took a shower of the eve of all national holidays. Besides a forced shower at a nearby river, Danger Man was the proud owner of an analogue shaving machine that resembled pair of scissors, which he deployed, on behalf of the state, on any unkempt man or anyone who spotted not-so-clean dreadlocks.
The provincial administration officers, from headman to the DO, seemed to like the job he was doing, even though it was illegal. With time, Danger Man’s power went to his head. One day he even confronted Nthambara, a well-liked dreadlocked man who was renowned for ferrying goods from wholesale to retail shops on his back.
So when Danger Man went to shave Nthambara, the latter challenged the self-styled fake state appointee to lift a gunnysack of sugar even a few inches off the ground. Of course Danger Man couldn’t. The now-haughty Danger Man did a few more silly things to prove his self-assigned powers. People started hating him. Questions started swirling as to what he did for a living and the legality of his self-assigned duty of shaving (they now called it harassing) mentally-challenged people. In the end, he was even locked up. Thus ended the reverence for the former man of the people.
As he went down, we learnt from him that when society gives you space to do good, you retain goodwill for as long as your benevolence does not morph into impunity and other socially injurious vices.
