Despite the government's directive banning movement into and out of the Nairobi Metropolitan Area in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, Kenyans are still figuring out ways to sneak out.
A report by KTN News on Tuesday, April 28, showed how two matatus were intercepted in Mukurweini, Nyeri County, reportedly ferrying people from Nairobi.
According to the reports issued by the Mururweini Sub-county Deputy Commissioner James Nyoro, the residents insisted that they were coming from Kenol in Murang'a County and lived in the region.
Further investigations, however, established that the claims they were making were not consistent and orders were then issued that the passengers be returned to where they were coming from.
The passengers are believed to have sneaked out of Nairobi through bodabodas in arrangement with the matatus waiting at Kenol area, which then passed through Mukurweini as some passengers were headed to Nanyuki and others to Subukia.
In a strange twist of events, however, the police officers did not deliver the passengers to the GSU roadblock for action to be taken but rather released them somewhere along the road.
The matatus were then reported to have driven back to Kenol and dropped the passengers to fend for themselves instead of the vehicle being driven to Nairobi where the passengers were expected to have come from.
The Mukurweini OCPD defended the decision by the police as in line with the directive from the Sub-County Coronavirus response team that the passengers be taken to where they came from.
The development has created worries that the passengers, said to be from Nairobi, would find another means to make their way through to the rural parts of Murang'a given that there was no cessation of movement in the region.
Kenyans have found numerous ways to sneak into and out of the Nairobi Metropolitan Area ever since the government issued directives to cease movements in an effort to control the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The police have in the past few days accused truck drivers of carrying passengers into and out of the city disguised as goods knowing that they would beat police roadblocks.
There have also been allegations that police officers were receiving bribes from people to allow them to breach the cessation of movement directive imposed in Nairobi, Kwale, Mombasa and Kilifi and Mandera.
