Nairobi News

Nalepo has become a rich man’s hell as a wave of insecurity continues to haunt residents day and night.

Part of Kiserian, it has become a playground for killers, robbers, and thieves.

Some home owners have moved away, leaving magnificent houses because of the incessant attacks while others are considering going too. Residents have lost count of the murders and raids. “Every month there must be at least one incident. It is too much and we have lost count,” said Mr Reuben Matthews.

He was one of the earliest to settle in the neighbourhood and has come across numerous attacks over the past 10 years. Now he says he has become an unofficial neighbourhood warden.

“We have saved lives because whenever a robbery is taking place neighbours call and I alert the police. However, we were not able to save our neighbour Nyaki when they broke into his house in 2006. They shot him through his heart,” said Mr Matthews.

“It has become common to hear some gun shots or people screaming,” said his wife, Pauline.

The neighbourhood, two kilometres from Rimpa along the Kiserian-Ngong Road in Ngai Murunya, has more than 250 palatial homes and Mr Matthews, an American, estimates that more than half of them have been raided.

And residents of this affluent neighbourhood are unable to get much help from the police due to administrative overlaps.

Ongata police chief Silas Ringera, under whose jurisdiction falls Kiserian, the nearest station to Nalepo, said he could not end crime in the estate because it is under Ngong division.

And Ngong police chief Farah Mohammed said he had not received any reports of crime in Nalepo, adding: “If it is there, let residents come to me and report it. Let them make formal complaints to me.”

In spite of detailed security measures which homeowners have put in place, the robbers have devised ways of gaining access.

They are now removing stones on security walls since they cannot jump over them because they are protected by electric fences, CCTV cameras and motion sensors. The gangs are now targeting new home owners.

Mr Eliud Oware is the latest victim. He was attacked on Sunday morning for the second time after moving into his home in September 2013.

A machete-wielding gang broke into his house by removing three stones from the security wall. What surprises him is that they pressed the door bell. When he woke to check he never saw anyone and so he went back to his bedroom.

The four men poisoned his five Alsatian dogs with cooked meat before getting in and only one survived. They removed motion sensors and window panes to enter the house. “Before they could get in I saw a man in a red hood carrying bows and arrows outside the house.

I pressed the security alarm and went upstairs to hide my family,” he said.

They also had an axe with which they pounded the window panes. The thugs made off with a 41-inch flat screen TV, three laptops, a desktop computer, two mobile phones, a watch and Sh5,700. No-one was injured.