Matatu culture or matatu graffiti?

Some time last year, in response to complaints of harassment by matatu crews, Uhuru Kenyatta, at an impromptu meet-the-people tour of Nairobi, directed that his agencies, including the National Police and the National Transport and Safety Authority, NTSA, lay off matatu graffiti. Lee Kinyanjui, the chairman of the NTSA, seems to have forgotten the presidential directive, insisting that the regulations drawn up by the NTSA will be enforced. To. The. Letter. 

He is right, of course, but he is being churlish and foolish. The NTSA, despite what it claims, is not a law enforcement agency. Its principal mandate is the safety of Kenya's transport sector, including by drafting and enforcing sensible regulations that enhance traffic (and road) safety. What graffiti, and loud exhaust, systems in matatus have to do with either remains known only to the Mr Kinyanjui and the NTSA staff.

President Kenyatta was right to ask for a sensible enforcement of the regulations. I can see why even he is confused about the Michukian assault on matatu graffiti. Matatu graffiti has nothing to do with passenger, road or transport safety. Indeed, whether the holier-than-thou wish to admit it or not, matatu graffiti has been part of the urban landscape since the 1990s. It is as distinctive as the Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, Mardi Gras in New Orleans, auto-rikshaws in New Delhi, Times Square in New York, Trafalgar Square in London, the Louvre in Paris and Filipino jeepneys. The graffiti is a source of employment for scores of young Kenyans for whom the formal job market has been particularly unkind. Mr Kinyanjui's NTSA is a threat to the livelihoods of thousands and their families' well-being.

The reasons why transport in Kenya is unsafe are not so difficult to discern. The enforcement of the Traffic Act is erratic at best, and malicious at worst. An examination of a large swathe of the public service vehicle sector operating in Kenya reveals that a staggering number are patently unsafe, are driven at unsafe speeds, and their operators impudently ignore even the basic provisions of the High Code. The relationship between the matatu sector and the forces of law and order contribute greatly to the poor safety record on our roads. 

What has pejoratively been described as matatu culture has now been adopted by private motorists, who flout as many traffic rules as they can and ape, to a disturbing degree, the chaos visited on our roads by the matatu sector. In the evolution of matatu culture from PSVs to private motorists, more and more private motorists are becoming more and more reckless and endangering further and further all attempts to rein in the poor safety record of our roads. What Mr Kinyanjui and the NTSA betray is a lack of imagination to improve the record on our roads.

It is time we admitted that we need matatus in Kenya, more so in Nairobi. What we must crack is the code that will ensure that they are safe, reliable and affordable. Banning their graffiti - works of art, really - will not do any of those things. If Mr Kinyanjui and Francis Meja, the NTSA boss, don't know this, it is time we asked them to take their talents to the national Police Service where the enforcement of irrelevant laws seems to be a favourite pastime.