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ALERT: Demos Rock Downtown Nairobi

A large mob of several hundred people poured into the streets of downtown Nairobi today in support of jailed mungiki leader Maina Njenga. Clashes with police ensued.

UPDATE: Several hundred Mungiki supporters descended upon Nairobi, calling into question security for the nation’s capital city. This incident came on the same day the BBC published its story about alleged police compliance with Mungiki members entering Nakuru. According to a Naukuru policemen, who spoke on condition of anonymity, he says he saw 12 minibuses full of armed Mungiki allowed by police to enter the city on the day the violence broke out in January. One has to wonder if a similar scenario allowed the huge crowd of gang members to descend on Nairobi. National Security Intelligence Service (NSIS) said they were caught off guard, but that’s hard to believe given the situation in Kenya. Although the violence has more or less subsided nationwide, security is still a major concern. All eyes are on parliament now as they put into place the power sharing deal. An MP I spoke with the day parliament reconvened told me that the pressure is intense because everyone knows that at any given moment, if the people are not happy with the progress, they can hit the streets and set the whole thing in motion again. How the security forces could allow several hundred Mungiki to tear through the streets of Nairobi in broad daylight is something of a mystery.

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