‘Boda boda’ rider confiscates pregnant goat from Sh50 debtor

By MURIMI MWANGI

KENYA: A boda boda operator shocked residents of a village in Kirinyaga County last Sunday, after he stormed his debtor’s home and impounded a pregnant goat.

He swore to sell the animal to recover his Sh50 debt, and refund the defaulter with the proceeds of the sale. 

Dressed in his full work regalia, complete with a heavy leather jacket and a helmet, the operator packed his motorbike outside the debtor’s gate.

He kicked a metallic gate open and declared he wouldn’t leave the homestead without his Sh50, which the owner defaulted on.

“I braved the cold and missed free drinks from friends at my local bar, to take home this bugger that chilly evening.

He had chewed a black out and fallen a sleep on a muddy veranda from where I was urged to take him home. He has refused to pay me, and keeps telling me to see him the following day. All I want is my money,” the rider proclaimed.  

The creditor’s wife, who was heading to church, however, informed him that her husband was still asleep, nursing the hangover of the previous day’s booze.

 In fact, she was reluctant to wake him up and claimed her husband hates being woken up early Sunday mornings. And again, she was not in talking terms with him following a fierce disagreement they had the previous night.

 Allegedly, her husband almost slit her throat after she refused to fry a dead squirrel he had staggered home with. “Nii ona ndarite kahuani. Ni ndina muoyo wa  Cuma na ndihota kung’eo ta nguku (following that ordeal, I spent my night in the coffee bushes)!

 “I will not risk losing my neck by attempting to wake him up,” she said as she walked off to church, a Bible firmly clutched beneath her armpits. 

The statement angered the boda boda man and prompted him to loudly wonder why the debtor was having a ball — drinking himself silly, yet he couldn’t pay up a little Sh50 debt.

Chilly

 “Do you know I risked catching pneumonia by minding this idiot’s health and safety by taking him home that chilly evening, and here he is behaving like a goat. And you say you can’t wake him up?” he asked the wife.

 Much to his surprise, the debtor’s wife kept strolling away as she hummed a hymn.

 Incensed that she seemed not to care that he was broke a few days to Christmas, the enraged rider swerved his neck around and saw nothing valuable but a pregnant goat!  “I will sell this goat, deduct my Sh50 and bring him the balance for him to continue ruining his liver with potent liquor,”  boldly declared the boda boda man.

Screaming

The utterances arrested the attention of the debtor’s wife making her to turn back only to see the boda boda rider making a beeline for the goat.  She began screaming to stop him and in the process, her husband woke up. He staggered out and watched — with his bloodshot eyes — in disbelief as the boda boda man dragged the bleating goat away. He dumped it in a plastic crate affixed to the bike and rode off.

“You must know people. Next time you default on my debt, I will snatch one of your shoes and let you walk on the other until you pay up.

Or better still, nitakunyang’anya bibi (I will ran off with your wife), don’t joke with me,” said the boda boda rider.

Crazy Monday could not immediately establish if indeed he sold the goat.