Inside story

Kibera Court No. 2

Normally, I would bribe a traffic policeman, but very occasionally it feels good to hit back against the system. ‘Go ahead. Book me,’ I said. The copper, a huge creature with rolls of fat around his neck and piggy eyes, sighed as if to say, ‘You poor dope.’ ‘OK, I’m taking you in.’ All because I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. At the station, the officer demanded a large sum in cash bail. His curious mates turned up to see what other crimes they could nail me for. ‘Your name is JOHN HOLAG.’ ‘No, it isn’t.’ They took a book down from shelves piled with dusty ledgers and slowly flipped through the pages. ‘Ah, yes. You have mutilated your driving licence.’ ‘No, I haven’t.’ ‘Shut up, Mr John Holag. You will appear in court on Monday to answer these serious charges. Skip bail and we will come after you. You can run, but you cannot hide.’

I immediately legged it for the Uganda frontier and telephoned my trusty farm manager, Mr Celestina Achole Sikuku. ‘I’m tied up here. Can you please go to court for me?’ ‘No problem,’ said Celestina. After several days looking at fields of sugar cane in the shadow of Mount Elgon all swathed in storm dragon clouds, I returned to Nairobi by Akamba bus. ‘Come quickly,’ Celestina urged me over the phone. ‘I told the judge my name was John Holag and she is very, very angry. The police want to put me inside.’

They arrested me on arrival at Kibera court. As the gates of the holding cells clanged shut, I felt pleased that Celestina had taken my phone and money for safekeeping. The cell was packed full of hardened criminals, many of them bruised, handcuffed or in prison uniform.