“‘He was a calm and sober man”- family mourns driver in Kariandusi matatu crash
Moses Ngugi Kinyua, uncle to Hezekiel Kinyua Nganga,.the driver to the passenger vehicle that got into an accident on March 3 at 9pm.
Hezekiel Kinyua Nganga has been driving for over a decade.
His family has described him as a calm, sober, reliable a family man in his late 30s, with three young children at home.
However, on the night of April 3, he was behind the wheel of a Likana Sacco 14-seater matatu, ferrying passengers from Naivasha to Nakuru when his journey - and his life - ended at the Kariandusi Bridge.
His brother-in-law, Moses Ngugi Kinyua, who lives in Nakuru, says he first came across news of the accident through images circulating on Facebook late that night.
He notes that he spotted what appeared to be a Likana Sacco vehicle in the photos and instinctively tried to zoom in on the number plate, but the image was too blurry to read.
“I saw it on Facebook at night and I tried to zoom in on the number plate because I know Kinyua works with Likana, but the image wasn't clear enough,” he says, adding that he wanted to call home and find out his well-being.
It was only the following morning, when his brother called, that the family's worst fears were confirmed, and he was dispatched to the scene to gather more information.
“In the morning, my brother told me about the accident, and the family sent me here to find out more,” he says, adding how unfortunate the incident has been for the family.
Kinyua is among the 10 people confirmed dead in the Friday night crash, a figure confirmed by Gilgil County Commander Winstone Mwakio, who also provided a detailed account of how the accident unfolded.
The wreckage of a shuttle that was involved in an accident at Kariandusi Bridge
Mwakio says the matatu was travelling from Naivasha to Nakuru when it slammed into a trailer that had stalled on the road at the Kariandusi Bridge at around 9:00 PM, just as Kenyans were beginning their Easter holiday.
He confirms that 10 people died on the spot, while five others were rushed to Gilgil sub-county morgue and the hospital, respectively.
“The truck driver said he had only stepped out for about five minutes to find a mechanic after experiencing car trouble. Unfortunately, within the said time, that’s when he heard the impact, and it was already too late,” Mwakio notes.
The County Commander says the stretch from Naivasha to Barnabas has become a notorious black spot, and urges drivers to exercise extra caution, particularly during festive seasons like this one, rainy days which are often misty, and in the evenings.
“We are urging all drivers to keep a keen eye on the road to ensure their safety and that of their passengers,” he says.
The tragedy, however, did not occur in a vacuum, as the Rironi–Mau Summit highway, expected to pass through the stretch, has long been a source of public frustration.
The government's promise to upgrade the corridor through the Nairobi-Mau Summit Road project has been years in the making, and while excavation work along the route signals some progress, delivery timelines have repeatedly slipped.
Had the government fulfilled its obligations within the originally set deadlines, and better infrastructure could have made the difference between a stalled trailer being a minor inconvenience and a catastrophe that claimed ten lives on this year’s Easter night.
This is, by every measure, one of those avoidable tragedies.