Apart from the now common Car-jacking, another phenomenon that is rapidly catching up is “Bar-jacking / pub-jacking…” I was a victim once and I have to rank it as the most harrowing experience I have ever experienced in my life.
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We had just completed the final run of an Israeli play “Accordions” which I had stage managed at the Kenya National Theatre on 31 may 2003. It being a Saturday, my two colleagues; Jeff who had played the main role as Matanya, Ken who had played “the angel of death” and I decided to proceed to the Ibiza Restaurant next to the Nation Center to water our taste buds. We left the National Theatre at about 9.30PM with a few drinks in our pockets in the form of a Kshs1000/= advance from the producer that we had grudgingly accepted insisting to be paid the whole amount in full. We walked all the way from the Harry Thuku Road, onto Koinange Street towards Kenyatta Avenue and branched left towards the Nation Center. We arrived at the Ibiza entrance at around 10.00PM. Outside, Ken decided not to come with us citing an urgent rendezvous he had.
The place was habitually packed forcing us to browse around for empty seats. These being unavailable, we had to make do with a couch and two seats right at the entrance, at the end of the staircase leading into the restaurant. Two female acquaintances who had watched the play earlier joined us after a few exchanges of phone calls. I vividly remember seeing some familiar television faces from the Nation Media Group seated at the counter. I reckoned the big number of the group was due to the close proximity of their office to the restaurant.
After about two hours or so of lively conversation and a few cold Tuskers, we were totally fused into the bar ambiance. I remember getting into an “intellectual argument” with Susan about a few socio-political issues. After a deadlock in our argument, she excused herself to visit the ladies’. At about the same time, most of the Nation employees left. I also went to the Gents’ to wash my face in order to clear my vision, which by this time was blurred by the effect of the alcohol I had imbibed. I came back to our table to find Jeff in a seemingly intimate dialogue with the other lady Carol. I felt bored and shifted the subject to the carved wooden giraffe behind my seat. I remember Jeff wondering out aloud how th giraffe’s outstandingly carved penis could be fitted with a condom. Jeff was barely at the end of his comical line of thought when two men staggered in front of our table and fell heavily on the cold floor. I burst out laughing wondering how two grown men could drink themselves so silly. I was about to communicate my thoughts to Jeff when my attention was drawn to the main entrance. Standing firm with his legs drawn apart stood a man about six feet tall in a leather jacket holding what looked like an AK-47 assault rifle. At the sight of this, anger immediately swelled in me. “The stupid cops have taken it too far this time… They’ve already started harassing people even in restaurants… I’ll give him a fucking piece of my mind…” I told myself. My thoughts were suddenly interrupted by amplified, accelerated commotion that gradually braked into a hushed silence. All around, images of people diving onto the hard, tiled floor in simultaneous fashion started flashing before my eyes. The scene all over the bar was reminiscent of a Mwamba rugby team try-getting drill. This was complemented by sounds of breaking bottles and screeching chairs against the floor suggestive of some sort of badly-arranged Kapuka music. I looked to my right and saw a young guy who could not have been more than twenty years old going around barking out instructions that I could not quite make out. I quickly panned left again to the 'cop' at the entrance to see another young jamaa standing next to him brandishing a revolver.
“Oh shit! Shit! shit” All the alcohol I had taken evaporated. I let out a quickly suppressed howl instantly biting my lip so as not to be heard. It was at this point that I confirmed the predicament my friends and I were in.
Realizing that I had not “dived” onto the cold floor along with everybody else as result of my very slow and naïve reaction to the events, I lifted up my arms in surrender and slowly and agonizingly slithered into an uncomfortable posture on the couch conscious that any sudden movement would invite a swift flow of bullets that would promptly end my cherished life.
My half-sitting-on-the-floor-half-crouching position gave me a good view of our captors and the unfolding events; the casually dressed men went around their operation in a visibly pre-rehearsed exercise. The tall gangster in the leather jacket seemed to be in charge of the job. His tough commands and mean demeanor compared suitably to those of a storybook Army Captain on a Prisoner-Of-War rescue mission. Besides the “Captain”, the other gun-totting youths had nothing extraordinary about them that could distinguish them from other members of a congregation in a Christian crusade.
A reveller, who must have decided to conclude his reveling night at Ibiza found himself in for a rude awakening when upon staggering into the restaurant, he was promptly ordered by the tall gangster to put belly to concrete. He was obviously slower and more naïve than I was since he contemptuously resisted the order. I cringed in readiness for the sound of a lethal burst of fire from one of the infamous AK-47 that would create huge perforations on his huge belly. But this did not happen; the “Captain” must have decided otherwise after seeing the drunken state of the newly-arrived reveller. After a few prods in the back with the muzzle of the AK-47, he must have come to a sudden realisation of the gravity of his situation because he made a dive that would have made any swimmer jealous.
The short intense scene (it happened in a matter of seconds) displayed the professionalism of our captors because in spite of the temporary resistance experienced, they maintained their cool and fired no shots.
Suddenly, it dawned on me that I was about to lose my phone. The previous week, I had promised myself I would transfer the more than 300 contacts on my phone book onto my computer due to the frequent rate of matatu-jackings on our Number 30 route to Kinoo. Some of the phone numbers were irreplaceable dating back to more than 10 years. A jammed work schedule had scuttled this plan. Desperation gives way to desperate actions; my precarious situation notwithstanding, I unthinkingly slid my fingers into my pocket, pulled out my 5-month old Siemens C-45 and threw it as far away as possible behind the couch. I would vehemently deny the phone as mine if it were found, I reckoned.
“Wewe! Unajiskia mjanja sana!” shouted the man in the leather jacket hastily approaching me and planting the barrel of the rifle onto my forehead. “Oh God please protect me… please do not let me die…” I silently pleaded. I was about to beg my would-be assassin for my life for hiding the phone when he said: “Unataka kutu identify, eh? (You want to identify us?) Why are you looking at us?” I apologized profusely and quickly forced myself into the space between the underside of the couch and the floor before he could think of firing the bullet that would cut short my life or reshape my well-formed facial features using the gun butt. He left me where I was gasping for breath and thanking God for delivering me at the same time swearing never to go out again.
His other colleagues had by now started collecting valuables from all the patrons. Jeff was first and duly handed over his phone. At the same time, another thug ordered me to hand over everything I had on me. I opened my wallet for him from which he took out all the money I had remaining (including the 1000 Kenya shillings we had been paid earlier).
When the time came for me to hand over my phone, a cold sweat started trickling down my brow, my feet became numb and my vision started becoming blurry. With a unassuming, calculatedly deceiving face, I told him that I did not own a phone.
“If I find it I promise I’ll kill you!” he retorted.
“Frisk me; I swear to you that I don’t have it. You can even kill me if you find it on me.” I answered back timidly, my heart nearly falling out of my mouth. I had to think fast; if I retrieved the phone from behind the couch, that would be sure death for me for wasting the gangster’s time. At that most desperate time, I remembered my Kencell SIM card that I always kept in my wallet: “Boss, I got car-jacked some time back and lost my phone to the car-jackers as a result,’ I explained. “I swear to you I am not lying, they even gave me back my SIM card. Here look,” I said at the same time retrieving the SIM card from my wallet.
My innocent demeanor must have somehow convinced him of my sincerity as he eased a bit on the trigger and moved on to other patrons for more collections.
As I was going through my ordeal, one of the other thugs had at the same time hit Jeff on the head with a beer bottle for not having enough money on him (he had hidden a few notes in one of the many pockets of his side mboco trouser). Taking stock of my situation, he thought it wise to hand over his phone to the thug since I had withheld mine. Carol was next and obediently complied with all their demands.
My frustrations had reached their peak making me wish for some kind of physical transformation that would change me into Spiderman, or better still Superman; I would use my superpowers to teach the bar-jackers a lesson. Their advantageous position over us killed this thought though.
After this 10-15 minutes episode reminiscent of a scene from an action movie, the thugs left as quietly as they had come in. It was some time before we realized that they were long gone after hurriedly emptying the bartender’s till and taking some of the DJ’s equipment.
When we eventually got up from the floor, the usual blame game started; which kind of respectable restaurant would allow its patrons to go through this kind of ordeal? Why was their security so rotten? Where were the bouncers? Where is the manager?
I had just retrieved my precious phone when someone from the far side of the pub set the alarm bells ringing; the thugs were back! We all hit the floor again; I started cursing myself for not being able to foresee their return when I was retrieving my phone from under the couch. I now lay in the open space totally exposed like a featherless roasted chicken on a family dinner table. Somebody shouted from the other side that it was only a scare. This must have sobered us up because as the futility of the whole ordeal dawned on us. The anger towards the restaurant’s management and security was replaced by a blanket acceptance. Had we expected a collection of muscles to stop live bullets? After all, this was the second joint to be hit by this new breed of armed robbers after a similar incident had occurred two weeks earlier at the Jazz Bar on Moi Avenue (We did not know that a month after our ordeal, the popular Tacos pub would be next on the bar-jackers list).
“Susan! Susan!” Carol’s shrill voice suddenly broke the somber mood as she started looking for her friend who minutes before the thugs came in had excused herself to visit the ladies’. We all feared the worst possible scenario: the thugs could have dragged her along with them as they left the restaurant intending to use her as a hostage or worse still rape her. However, our fear dissipated at the sight of Susan approaching from the direction of the toilets. Her face was literally white in color perhaps having endured such an excruciating ordeal in a room not knowing what was happening on the outside. All this time, she was standing on the toilet seat waiting for one of the thugs to budge in…
We decided to wait a bit before leaving the restaurant to avoid the possibility of being shot by police officers on the lookout for the gangsters. After a 30 minutes wait at around 3.00AM, we beckoned to Jeff (who had gone back to the table to finish his beer) that it was time for us to leave.
On our way down, I remember seeing Ken, a film director, holding his brow in a solemn posture in direct contrast to the upbeat radiant person who had come in just moments before the thugs struck. He must have lost a very expensive phone or quite some money on him, I thought to myself on our way down.
Downstairs at the main entrance, we found a couple of policemen in camouflage jackets and G-3 rifles who had come to “investigate” the “unfortunate incident”. This they assured us, was “just another happenstance not any different from the numerous others occurring all over the country.” We therefore headed home dejected.
We boarded a Matatu at the Khoja Mosque bus stop and assured our co-passengers that we had already been robbed thus if there was anybody who any ulterior motives, they would be disappointed.
_______________________________________
Rumba! © 2003
As a remedial measure, I decided it is safer to have a phone that you do not constantly worry about possessing. A good example is the Walkie Talkie-like NEC phone. If you’re lucky, you will probably get it back after a thorough dressing down from your would be aggressor.
Additionally, these days I do a lot of “window shopping”. I take advantage of the numerous display windows to monitor my surroundings and single out suspicious characters that might be tailing me.
___________________________________________________________________
We had just completed the final run of an Israeli play “Accordions” which I had stage managed at the Kenya National Theatre on 31 may 2003. It being a Saturday, my two colleagues; Jeff who had played the main role as Matanya, Ken who had played “the angel of death” and I decided to proceed to the Ibiza Restaurant next to the Nation Center to water our taste buds. We left the National Theatre at about 9.30PM with a few drinks in our pockets in the form of a Kshs1000/= advance from the producer that we had grudgingly accepted insisting to be paid the whole amount in full. We walked all the way from the Harry Thuku Road, onto Koinange Street towards Kenyatta Avenue and branched left towards the Nation Center. We arrived at the Ibiza entrance at around 10.00PM. Outside, Ken decided not to come with us citing an urgent rendezvous he had.
The place was habitually packed forcing us to browse around for empty seats. These being unavailable, we had to make do with a couch and two seats right at the entrance, at the end of the staircase leading into the restaurant. Two female acquaintances who had watched the play earlier joined us after a few exchanges of phone calls. I vividly remember seeing some familiar television faces from the Nation Media Group seated at the counter. I reckoned the big number of the group was due to the close proximity of their office to the restaurant.
After about two hours or so of lively conversation and a few cold Tuskers, we were totally fused into the bar ambiance. I remember getting into an “intellectual argument” with Susan about a few socio-political issues. After a deadlock in our argument, she excused herself to visit the ladies’. At about the same time, most of the Nation employees left. I also went to the Gents’ to wash my face in order to clear my vision, which by this time was blurred by the effect of the alcohol I had imbibed. I came back to our table to find Jeff in a seemingly intimate dialogue with the other lady Carol. I felt bored and shifted the subject to the carved wooden giraffe behind my seat. I remember Jeff wondering out aloud how th giraffe’s outstandingly carved penis could be fitted with a condom. Jeff was barely at the end of his comical line of thought when two men staggered in front of our table and fell heavily on the cold floor. I burst out laughing wondering how two grown men could drink themselves so silly. I was about to communicate my thoughts to Jeff when my attention was drawn to the main entrance. Standing firm with his legs drawn apart stood a man about six feet tall in a leather jacket holding what looked like an AK-47 assault rifle. At the sight of this, anger immediately swelled in me. “The stupid cops have taken it too far this time… They’ve already started harassing people even in restaurants… I’ll give him a fucking piece of my mind…” I told myself. My thoughts were suddenly interrupted by amplified, accelerated commotion that gradually braked into a hushed silence. All around, images of people diving onto the hard, tiled floor in simultaneous fashion started flashing before my eyes. The scene all over the bar was reminiscent of a Mwamba rugby team try-getting drill. This was complemented by sounds of breaking bottles and screeching chairs against the floor suggestive of some sort of badly-arranged Kapuka music. I looked to my right and saw a young guy who could not have been more than twenty years old going around barking out instructions that I could not quite make out. I quickly panned left again to the 'cop' at the entrance to see another young jamaa standing next to him brandishing a revolver.
“Oh shit! Shit! shit” All the alcohol I had taken evaporated. I let out a quickly suppressed howl instantly biting my lip so as not to be heard. It was at this point that I confirmed the predicament my friends and I were in.
Realizing that I had not “dived” onto the cold floor along with everybody else as result of my very slow and naïve reaction to the events, I lifted up my arms in surrender and slowly and agonizingly slithered into an uncomfortable posture on the couch conscious that any sudden movement would invite a swift flow of bullets that would promptly end my cherished life.
My half-sitting-on-the-floor-half-crouching position gave me a good view of our captors and the unfolding events; the casually dressed men went around their operation in a visibly pre-rehearsed exercise. The tall gangster in the leather jacket seemed to be in charge of the job. His tough commands and mean demeanor compared suitably to those of a storybook Army Captain on a Prisoner-Of-War rescue mission. Besides the “Captain”, the other gun-totting youths had nothing extraordinary about them that could distinguish them from other members of a congregation in a Christian crusade.
A reveller, who must have decided to conclude his reveling night at Ibiza found himself in for a rude awakening when upon staggering into the restaurant, he was promptly ordered by the tall gangster to put belly to concrete. He was obviously slower and more naïve than I was since he contemptuously resisted the order. I cringed in readiness for the sound of a lethal burst of fire from one of the infamous AK-47 that would create huge perforations on his huge belly. But this did not happen; the “Captain” must have decided otherwise after seeing the drunken state of the newly-arrived reveller. After a few prods in the back with the muzzle of the AK-47, he must have come to a sudden realisation of the gravity of his situation because he made a dive that would have made any swimmer jealous.
The short intense scene (it happened in a matter of seconds) displayed the professionalism of our captors because in spite of the temporary resistance experienced, they maintained their cool and fired no shots.
Suddenly, it dawned on me that I was about to lose my phone. The previous week, I had promised myself I would transfer the more than 300 contacts on my phone book onto my computer due to the frequent rate of matatu-jackings on our Number 30 route to Kinoo. Some of the phone numbers were irreplaceable dating back to more than 10 years. A jammed work schedule had scuttled this plan. Desperation gives way to desperate actions; my precarious situation notwithstanding, I unthinkingly slid my fingers into my pocket, pulled out my 5-month old Siemens C-45 and threw it as far away as possible behind the couch. I would vehemently deny the phone as mine if it were found, I reckoned.
“Wewe! Unajiskia mjanja sana!” shouted the man in the leather jacket hastily approaching me and planting the barrel of the rifle onto my forehead. “Oh God please protect me… please do not let me die…” I silently pleaded. I was about to beg my would-be assassin for my life for hiding the phone when he said: “Unataka kutu identify, eh? (You want to identify us?) Why are you looking at us?” I apologized profusely and quickly forced myself into the space between the underside of the couch and the floor before he could think of firing the bullet that would cut short my life or reshape my well-formed facial features using the gun butt. He left me where I was gasping for breath and thanking God for delivering me at the same time swearing never to go out again.
His other colleagues had by now started collecting valuables from all the patrons. Jeff was first and duly handed over his phone. At the same time, another thug ordered me to hand over everything I had on me. I opened my wallet for him from which he took out all the money I had remaining (including the 1000 Kenya shillings we had been paid earlier).
When the time came for me to hand over my phone, a cold sweat started trickling down my brow, my feet became numb and my vision started becoming blurry. With a unassuming, calculatedly deceiving face, I told him that I did not own a phone.
“If I find it I promise I’ll kill you!” he retorted.
“Frisk me; I swear to you that I don’t have it. You can even kill me if you find it on me.” I answered back timidly, my heart nearly falling out of my mouth. I had to think fast; if I retrieved the phone from behind the couch, that would be sure death for me for wasting the gangster’s time. At that most desperate time, I remembered my Kencell SIM card that I always kept in my wallet: “Boss, I got car-jacked some time back and lost my phone to the car-jackers as a result,’ I explained. “I swear to you I am not lying, they even gave me back my SIM card. Here look,” I said at the same time retrieving the SIM card from my wallet.
My innocent demeanor must have somehow convinced him of my sincerity as he eased a bit on the trigger and moved on to other patrons for more collections.
As I was going through my ordeal, one of the other thugs had at the same time hit Jeff on the head with a beer bottle for not having enough money on him (he had hidden a few notes in one of the many pockets of his side mboco trouser). Taking stock of my situation, he thought it wise to hand over his phone to the thug since I had withheld mine. Carol was next and obediently complied with all their demands.
My frustrations had reached their peak making me wish for some kind of physical transformation that would change me into Spiderman, or better still Superman; I would use my superpowers to teach the bar-jackers a lesson. Their advantageous position over us killed this thought though.
After this 10-15 minutes episode reminiscent of a scene from an action movie, the thugs left as quietly as they had come in. It was some time before we realized that they were long gone after hurriedly emptying the bartender’s till and taking some of the DJ’s equipment.
When we eventually got up from the floor, the usual blame game started; which kind of respectable restaurant would allow its patrons to go through this kind of ordeal? Why was their security so rotten? Where were the bouncers? Where is the manager?
I had just retrieved my precious phone when someone from the far side of the pub set the alarm bells ringing; the thugs were back! We all hit the floor again; I started cursing myself for not being able to foresee their return when I was retrieving my phone from under the couch. I now lay in the open space totally exposed like a featherless roasted chicken on a family dinner table. Somebody shouted from the other side that it was only a scare. This must have sobered us up because as the futility of the whole ordeal dawned on us. The anger towards the restaurant’s management and security was replaced by a blanket acceptance. Had we expected a collection of muscles to stop live bullets? After all, this was the second joint to be hit by this new breed of armed robbers after a similar incident had occurred two weeks earlier at the Jazz Bar on Moi Avenue (We did not know that a month after our ordeal, the popular Tacos pub would be next on the bar-jackers list).
“Susan! Susan!” Carol’s shrill voice suddenly broke the somber mood as she started looking for her friend who minutes before the thugs came in had excused herself to visit the ladies’. We all feared the worst possible scenario: the thugs could have dragged her along with them as they left the restaurant intending to use her as a hostage or worse still rape her. However, our fear dissipated at the sight of Susan approaching from the direction of the toilets. Her face was literally white in color perhaps having endured such an excruciating ordeal in a room not knowing what was happening on the outside. All this time, she was standing on the toilet seat waiting for one of the thugs to budge in…
We decided to wait a bit before leaving the restaurant to avoid the possibility of being shot by police officers on the lookout for the gangsters. After a 30 minutes wait at around 3.00AM, we beckoned to Jeff (who had gone back to the table to finish his beer) that it was time for us to leave.
On our way down, I remember seeing Ken, a film director, holding his brow in a solemn posture in direct contrast to the upbeat radiant person who had come in just moments before the thugs struck. He must have lost a very expensive phone or quite some money on him, I thought to myself on our way down.
Downstairs at the main entrance, we found a couple of policemen in camouflage jackets and G-3 rifles who had come to “investigate” the “unfortunate incident”. This they assured us, was “just another happenstance not any different from the numerous others occurring all over the country.” We therefore headed home dejected.
We boarded a Matatu at the Khoja Mosque bus stop and assured our co-passengers that we had already been robbed thus if there was anybody who any ulterior motives, they would be disappointed.
_______________________________________
Rumba! © 2003
As a remedial measure, I decided it is safer to have a phone that you do not constantly worry about possessing. A good example is the Walkie Talkie-like NEC phone. If you’re lucky, you will probably get it back after a thorough dressing down from your would be aggressor.
Additionally, these days I do a lot of “window shopping”. I take advantage of the numerous display windows to monitor my surroundings and single out suspicious characters that might be tailing me.
