Inside the infamous bhang trade that landed Nakuru woman in jail

Getting married at 18, Elizabeth Nyambura, 52, had to become a hands-on tradesman to earn a living and support her husband in raising their children.

A young girl from Laikipia found herself in Bondeni estate where crime had infiltrated the community’s core. She says digging into the big pie was the only way they would have made ends meet.

Nyambura reveals selling illicit brew (Chang’aa) was her introduction into criminal activity, leading to her becoming a bhang peddler and receiving a three-year sentence in prison.

According to her, her living conditions and surroundings forced her into crime.

“The environment I lived in pushed me into illegal business. Women in my estate brew chang’aa and busaa openly and their lifestyle seems more elevated than ours.  Coming from a humble background at home, I did not know the alternative opportunities I would pursue to make money. To put food on the table, I joined what everyone else was doing,” she notes.

Before her arrest in 2003, Nyambura had been peddling bhang for 13 years. She says she would source them from Uganda to Kenya to try and get better returns.

“I would buy what we call kifagio (a bundle of Bhang) at sh 50 in Uganda and resell it for sh 150 in Kenya. This went on for 13 years before I met my fate and was arrested by police at a roadblock at Luanda near Maseno, while they were doing a routine inspection in the bus I was traveling in,” she reveals.

Asked if she had been arrested by police in the country before, she notes bribery in the country had been a way to escape arrest. Adding that the biggest sum she has had to part away with to avoid her arrest was Sh 7,000.

The mother of five notes that her sentencing on February 12, 2004 to Kakamega prison was her turning point in life.

Being away from her children took a toll on her and she proposed to reinvent herself to be a better person and mother as she awaited her return back to society.

“I served my sentence for two years before my sentencing was remitted and I was released in 2006. I always say going to prison was fortunate for me, because that changed my life. As an inmate I learnt how to make detergents and tailoring,” she says, as she explains it’s the skill she learnt while in prison that gave her another chance in life and a crime free one for that fact.

Nyambura says she came to Nakuru in the 90s and before her sentencing, she did not know one could make ends meet without involving herself into illegitimate business.

Today, she is championing for a crime free community in Bondeni and has proposed to engage youth with talks against crime.

Other than that, she allowed a portion of her land to be used to develop a community basketball court, to help change the community's narrative that crime was the only way of life.

“I have seen sports transform communities. Being a resident of Bondeni for 35 years, I believe our community will be changed by basketball in the future. Over 70 youth come in for training and to play, pulling them away from idling and criminal activity,” she notes.