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On Monday afternoon, the chief suspect of the sexual assault of a female motorist along Wangari Maathai Road was arrested in the border town of Isibania while fleeing to Tanzania.
(See the video of the incident at the end of this article)
Zachariah Nyaora Obadia, who had earlier escaped the police dragnet, was finally nabbed and airlifted to Nairobi to face charges in a law court.
“Sleuths from the elite Crime Research and Intelligence Bureau augmented by a section of detectives from Nairobi DCI Regional command, pounced on him as he tried to cross the border to Tanzania through a “panya route,” the statement of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) Twitter account read in part.
On March 8th, cybercrime experts working with DCI detectives placed Obadia on the crime scene using digital forensics. The detectives then went after him at his Mukuru Kayaba residence, an informal settlement in Nairobi.
However, the suspect, who may have been aware police were cracking down on Boda Boda cyclists suspected to have played a role in the attack, escaped narrowly via a sewer duct, DCI said. Nonetheless, he was positively identified by his wife and close relative, who saw the video clip that went viral across the country.
DCI released two photographs of Obadia, one standing in front of a direction sign pointing toward Tanzania and another in the back of a car, appearing relaxed and with a soft smile.
The incident has prompted a dialogue within the country on controlling the industry many Kenyans perceive as rowdy and out-of-control.
The chairman in charge of motorbike taxis, commonly known as Boda Boda, Ken Onyango, has asked the national government to initiate SACCOs in the industry to bring about sanity.
Speaking on Radio Citizen in the station’s Jambo Kenya breakfast show on Monday morning, Onyango said that the industry is vital in job creation and should be streamlined for the good of the country.
“Boda Boda guys are not bad. It’s only a few who enter the industry to commit crimes who are painting us the bad name. The industry has helped in creating jobs for more than two million youths, mechanics, spare part sellers, and even petrol stations,” he said.
“A Boda Boda is not a license to strip a woman and remove her dignity. There should never be a repeat of what happened. This is a blight on the whole Kenyan society,” President Uhuru Kenyatta said.
He, however, acknowledged that the sector is on the reform path and asked for the government to apply law enforcement uniformly.
“There are a few individuals in the government who don’t want us to be united. They are the ones who are frustrating the government’s efforts to streamline the sector. We ask CS Matiang’I to act on this matter once and for all,” he said.
The chairman said that Boda Boda SACCOs would be the real cure for the problems ailing the sector as they can be easily managed.
“The Boda Boda associations are big, with so many people. It becomes hard to even manage and discipline. We want Saccos just like matatus. Easy to manage the members and discipline. With SACCOs, it will be easier to even identify the wrongdoers and discipline them,” he said.
Meanwhile, the national safety chairman, Kevin Mubadi, said that the government is dedicated to providing a favorable environment to the operators in the industry, and they are ready to work with it.
“We talked with the government, and they stopped the national crackdown that had given our members jitters. We wanted to be listened to, and we are glad the government heeded our pleas,” Mubadi said.
President Uhuru Kenyatta last week ordered a national crackdown on Boda Boda, following an incident in which a woman driver was assaulted by a Boda Boda mob on Wangari Maathai Road in Nairobi.
The woman, a Zimbabwean diplomat, had hit another road user, while driving on the road formerly known as Forest Road. A viral clip that emerged from the incident showed a rowdy mob suspected to be Boda Boda riders pulling the terrified and screaming woman, ripping her clothes, and sexually harassing her.
“A Boda Boda is not a license to strip a woman and remove her dignity. There should never be a repeat of what happened. This is a blight on the whole Kenyan society,” President Uhuru Kenyatta said.
The head of state was speaking at the Kenya School of Government in Lower Kabete, where he was the chief guest at this year’s International Women’s Day national celebration.
The crackdown that ensued saw more than 200 Boda Boda riders arrested and hundreds of motorcycles impounded. The crackdown was halted last week to allow room for dialogue.
Mubadi said that the government has teamed with Tvet institutions and NYS to provide training for Boda Boda riders in the country for free.
“It’s now easy to get professional training on riding. Initially, there were few training schools for Boda Boda, and most of our members could not reach them,” Mubadi said.
He urged the operators in the sector to embrace the digital Boda Boda registration that the government will roll out soon.
“With digital registrations, the government will easily trace and monitor our members. So if one commits a crime, they will have nowhere to hide as their details will be with the government for easy follow-up,” he said.
Mubadi appealed to Boda Boda riders not to take political alignments to the workplace, as it can work against them and breed hatred and disunity among themselves.
Erick Manyinsa, a leader of one of the Boda Boda stages in Kisii town, asked the government to be ruthless in dealing with rogue operators for sanity to be assured in the sector.
“We have some people who open Boda Boda stages anyhow, anywhere, out of their greed for money and leadership. They attract untrained Boda Boda riders, and they don’t even vet them,” he said.
“Some of them are school dropouts. These are some of the people who are at the forefront in disregarding traffic laws because they don’t even know them.”
Judy Gitau, Africa regional coordinator at Equality Now, an NGO, spoke to the UK’s The Independent concerning the matter.
“This heinous incident is a stark reminder that despite the progress we have made towards gender equality as a country, we still have a long way to go.
“That whereas we have women occupying the highest offices in this land the default setting of a group of men in response to an accident is to attack a helpless young woman in a pack at her core, to attack her person, her dignity, sexually assault her with no regard whatsoever. This tells us that the problem is deeper,” Gitau said.
According to the police report seen by the Kenyan dailies, the woman, a 32-year-old woman, hit a Boda Boda rider and stopped a few meters away from the accident. When she stopped, a group of Boda Boda riders surrounded her car and started threatening her. She tried driving off, but the mob caught up with her and blocked her. They then began groping her and stripped off her clothes.
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