Nairobi's Chief Officer for Environment, Geoffrey Mosiria, has hit back at Embakasi East Member of Parliament Babu Owino over the controversial eviction of hawkers from walkways in the Nairobi Central Business District.
Mosiria ignited public debate on June 27, after a video emerged of the county official in a heated confrontation with two orange hawkers near the National Archives in the Nairobi CBD.
In the footage, there was a dramatic standoff between Mosiria and the hawkers, who declined to vacate the public walkway despite the county government's threat of more stringent enforcement measures.
Amid a spate of criticism, including from Babu Owino, Mosiria accused the Embakasi East lawmaker of using hawkers' plight as a political weapon.
“There is nowhere in any city where poverty is used as a card to break the law,” Mosiria said on Monday. “He (Babu Owino) is weaponising poverty when he knows if he were the governor, he wouldn’t allow hawkers to sell their goods anywhere.”
Babu Owino had earlier defended hawkers through a scathing statement, saying the urban poor were being profiled and harassed by the county government.
“The poor are not poor by choice but by circumstance. Leaders should serve the people, not exploit their silence, and not weaponise poverty against them,” he wrote. “Justice is not charity. Equality is not a favour. Dignity is not negotiable. Every decision you make echoes in the lives of those who have the least. Do not let it echo with suffering.”
The issue of hawkers has been a contentious one in Nairobi, with Governor Johnson Sakaja effecting a ban on hawking in the CBD in January 2025.
In his notice, Sakaja specifically listed Moi Avenue, Haile Selassie Avenue, Kenneth Matiba Road, Latema Road, Ronald Ngala Street, Mfangano Street, Hakati Road, and River Road as areas that are off-limits to hawkers.
Hawkers were therefore restricted to selling their wares along the stretch from Tom Mboya Street to Kirinyaga Road, but months later, the enforcement of the directive remains inconsistent.
The Nairobi County government, through Mosiria, has continued to crack down on hawking in undesignated areas, with the latest operation taking place on Monday, June 25.
According to the Chief Officer of Environment, the operation targeted hawkers who had shifted from the CBD to the outer edges of Uhuru Park, completely blocking both sides of the walkway.
