The Invention of 'Magical Seats

One of the major inventions in the history of the world that have immensely facilitated the life of the human race are the inventions of the transport sector.

To Kenyans, the inventions seem to have brought an equal scale of the bane as far as loss of human life is concerned.

This is not to blame on nature but on the arrogance and sheer ignorance of the Kenyans.

A case study here is the art of overloading matatus and buses through an interesting invention of these cars operators to increase the space of the units of carriage.

The Matatu operators plying the Nairobi-Thika route are the Aristotles' of this kind of invention. These people have two pieces of wood in the car that they place between two seats to make a new 'seat' that someone is to seat on.

In addition to that, the rare most seats that ideally only three people have to be on them when they are completely filled end up having as much as five.

This applies also to the front seats. In the end, a 14-seater matatu ends up carrying almost twenty people.

What intrigues me is the fact that every passenger boarding those matatus seems to have accepted that habit of placing the pieces of wood between seats to create the 'magical seats'.

Many a times I have boarded those matatus and refused to seat on those 'seats' or decline to move so that a person can insert himself in the fifteen centimeters between me and the car the reaction I obtained from my fellow passengers made me fill like a gate crasher who made the whole party stop so that he could be kicked out.

One particular day an elderly woman told me that, I quote"Michuki alikufa kijana."("Michuki died boy.")Another one told that the car does not belong to my mother.

My take is that this habit can be stopped if the authority concerned become more vigilant starting with the pliers of our great Super Thika Highway.
This should be corrected before it calls for more urgent attention. This task, by the way, is not only for the authorities but also the car operators and the ignorant passengers. After all whose lives will be lost?