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Stephene Muturi, who leads a group of divers that have rescued residents from River Ndarugu during the rainy season.
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When scenes of burnt tyres and clouds of teargas were witnessed on Monday in some parts of the country.
When scenes of burnt tyres and clouds of teargas were witnessed on Monday in some parts of the country, they conjured memories of the 2008/09 post-election violence in which Nakuru was caught smack in the middle of.
It reminded residents of a time where women and children sought refuge in police stations too afraid to stay in their homes. It also brought back memories of a time when men sent their wives and children into hiding and stood their ground, protecting their homes from friends who had turned foes.
Nakuru remembers all too well a time where pangas that had just been used to till this fertile land were in the hands of people baying for human blood. So fresh are these memories that every time a small disturbance is witnessed in any part of this county, it is shut down immediately.
Perhaps it is this memory that contributed to a poor turn out at the Azimio led Maandamano. When the two leaders, Nakuru Azimio la Umoja chairman Joel Kairu and Nakuru ODM Chairperson Bernard Miruka, led a handful of protestors along Kenyatta avenue, none of the onlookers joined in. In fact, at one point some of the shop owners asked the small group to call it off and “please go home”.
And when they were bundled into the police vehicle, barely a minute later, everything went back to normal, leaving some residents with no whim that there was an attempted protest that day.
You see, politics is a touchy subject in this town.
In the past, politicians and writers of politics have described this volatile situation by saying “when Nakuru sneezes, the entire country catches a cold”. Well it seems this time the residents have chosen to hurdle up in warm blankets, dawa concoction in hand and keep that ‘cold’ as far away from them as they can.