Mushrooming estate private schools blamed for crime

By Silvia Juma

Kayole Estate residents have blamed mushrooming secondary schools located on high-rise flats for increased crime in the area.

Speaking while viewing bodies of three boys lynched by the mob after a robbery attempt, the angry residents threatened to take action if the government did not act.

The three boys aged 18, 17 and 18, were lynched and set ablaze at around 2am after a woman they had tried to rob got hold of one of them. Efforts to beat the woman to let go of their friend proved futile when maasai guards in the vicinity intervened and nailed down the three.

“I had a woman scream in the wee hours of the morning and I woke my husband,” Mrs. Teresa Moraa said.  “He in turn woke up the neighbours and the men sprinted out,” she added.

What surprised the neighbours was that one of the boys was their neighbour and his mother had pleaded with the angry mob not to set his son on fire in vain. Teresa says that the mob threatened to kill the woman too if she did not cooperate. She helplessly returned to her house because she could not witness her son perish.

The area chief urged to residents not to take matters in their hands and instead report such cases to the police.

Andrew Mutiso, a form two student in one of the private schools, admits that four of his classmates are student by day and thieves by night. “They come with smartphones in class after a fruitful night and brag how they don’t have to come to school to make it in life,” Mutiso said.

Because of population growth and high cost of living accelerating at a blinding pace, private primary and secondary schools are mushrooming each day in Nairobi suburbs. Most of these schools are money-oriented with little care for the students’ morals.

There are more than 2000 private secondary schools in Nairobi’s Eastlands and most of them are understaffed.

First published in March 2012.