What Happens When Bosslady Calls?

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It was dark. The kind of darkness that looks like a black fog. A black opaqueness that refuses to get out of the way. The two stolen cars followed each other through this blackness, headed to a house in Kiambu where a man who had just come from the US was having a welcome home dinner with his brothers. There was lots of money in that house; dollars, Kenya shillings and euros. The eight men in the two cars knew it. And they wanted that money. In one of the cars was our guy, seated calmly at the back, ignoring the chatter. Let’s call him Ng’ash. He had a gun. They all had guns. He also had a switch knife with a heavy base. It is with this heavy base that he would later pummel one of the brothers when he tried to resist, drawing fresh blood. Blood didn’t scare Ng’ash. Neither did violence. This job required violence; violence was a vital tool for it.

During the robbery, as the other gang members scoured the big house, picking light electronics, rummaging through the drawers for other valuables, Ng’ash – the calmest of them all and thus the brains of this unit – was watching the captives, because the whole operation depended on everybody not making any sudden movements. Sometimes that meant shooting someone, like he did one of the chaps who tried to be a hero. As the guy crumpled to the floor, a bullet in his thigh, Ng’ash calmly turned the gun on the heaviest of the men and just stared at him. Nobody did anything foolish again until the gang re-entered the darkness they belonged in, dumped the cars on River Road and took cabs out of the CBD to a slum where they got off and walked to meet their lady boss, the head of the gang.

Before you get it twisted, this isn’t a crime story of some hoodlums shoving guns in people’s faces. This is actually about a man, a robber, a father, a husband. There is a woman who is pivotal to this story. Let’s call her Njeri. She is important because she is the one who turns this story around. But Njeri isn’t ready to enter our story just yet, right now it’s about the badassery of Ng’ash.

I’m seated with Ng’ash at the food court of a mall. This same man who shot a man in the thigh. It’s irreconcilable. He’s so calm. When I joined him, I found him reading a novel. Ng’ash is a teacher in a very famous school in Nairobi – as in, if you named the top five primary schools in Nairobi it will be one of them. Which means he could be your daughter or son’s teacher. He could be one of the class teachers you sit with on open day to discuss your child’s progress.

Violence is not something unfamiliar to Ng’ash, it goes way back to his childhood in Nakuru.

“My dad’s first wife gave him four daughters, but then she died when the girls were very young, after which he married my mom,” he says softly. “My mom bore my sis and I, the only boy.” His father was a drunk and a violent man. Home was tempestuous. He would come in drunk, punching holes through doors, fighting his mother. There’d be screams, utensils falling and breaking, snarled words, tears and his mother leaving in the dead of night, Ng’ash passing her purse through the window as his father snarled in the living room, staggering around like a caged beast. “Mum would be gone for a few days but then she would come back. They would have another fight and she would be gone again,” he says.

One day a truck came and she packed him, his sister and all her belongings and fled that marriage. They left the other four sisters behind. You only carry what you came with, right? They started a hard life in Nairobi. He joined a new school. “One day, after many months, my father suddenly shows up in school. He tells me to grab my bag and that the teacher has allowed me to leave. He wanted me to take him where we lived. I was in class five,” he says. He happily took him home. (“My mom was pissed off!”) His father told his mom, “You have a choice here, if you keep this boy with you, I will not pay for his education, but if you let me leave with him, I will take care of his education.” His mother was struggling, so she said, “Fine, go with him.”

And Ng’ash was back in Nakuru.

“At the time, I found it strange that my father left my sister with my mom. It’s only later that I figured that she wasn’t my dad’s daughter.”

But let’s go back to the robbers. They get to the heart of the slum where boss lady lives. To get to her, you’d go through “security layers”, which involved doorways and corridors, past small open squares that finally led you into a lavish home that could have been anywhere in Muthaiga or Loresho. They get there at around 3am and a young man lets them in. They sit in the living room, where they place all the money on the coffee table and wait. Twenty minutes later, bosslady emerges in a deera. She had been sleeping. She says hello to them and asks if everything went okay. They report that apart from the usual (beatings) they had to shoot someone in the leg. Boss lady sits away from the money, legs tucked under her, ignoring the exercise before her. She never looks at the money or touches it. A second man comes in and counts the money. They all sit silently. The only sound is the tick tock of the grandfather clock on the wall. It’s the first time Ng’ash has been to that house. He has heard of bosslady, of her mythism and lore. At some point he thought she was an urban lore. But there she was, stifling a yawn, looking more like a housewife than a crime lord. Her house was rich and sophisticated with oil paintings, thick carpets, antiques, silverware, the works.

Back in Nakuru life was proving difficult living with his other four sisters because his father was a government official and was always gone. “He’d leave money behind for food, which my [step] sisters would divide five ways and everyone would get their share. Whatever you did with yours was your problem. If you spent yours before Dad came back you would starve.”

One day his father came home and picked some household stuff. He then bundled them all in the car and took them to a house in Shabaab where he disappeared into the inner rooms, leaving them in the sitting room. “When he emerged, he was wearing shorts. That’s when it hit us that all along when he’d disappear for weeks, he was here in his other home. He had another wife and a son that was not his,” he says. “He introduced us to his wife and told us that we would be living there. My sisters refused. He told them if they opted to go back to our house, he’d not pay for food or afford to pay rent for two houses. My sisters left all the same and later got a one-room house. I remained behind.”

“Living in that house was the start of my tribulations,” he says. “My stepmom was the the stereotypical stepmom. She would mistreat me and beat me up. I did all the house chores; cooking, cleaning. It didn’t help that my being a boy seemed to threaten the position of her own son because we were now two sons. When my father was around, she would be on her best behaviour and no matter what I told my father about her, he would never believe me. My step brother was a good guy. He always tried to protect me when his mother was fighting me, but she soon wore him down too. I developed anger issues, real anger issues. I started running away from home. I didn’t feel that I belonged anywhere.”

One day after being beaten by his father, he took off and got into an Eldoret Express bus, landing in Nairobi in the dead of night. He didn’t have anywhere to go so he sat outside Central Police Station. A man driving by stopped and asked him what the hell he was doing there alone at that time of the night. He was 13-years old. He said he had nowhere to go. The man said, “Okay, come we go.” They went to a bar behind Roosters frequented by cops, CID officers and Flying Squad guys. The man bought Ng’ash sodas while he drunk beers with his peers. The men kept asking what Ng’ash was doing in the bar and the man would say, “Leave that boy alone, he’s my guest.”

In the small hours, they left and drove to Gilgil. Ng’ash only realised the man was a military guy when the soldiers at the army barracks gate saluted him. The man took him to his house and introduced him to his wife. She gave Ng’ash a blanket and he crashed on the couch. The man never pressured him, never asked him what his plan was. He taught him two things; how to drive and the love of books.

“He was like me, a very quiet person. His house had a study that he would disappear into for long stretches of time. I would join him there because I like solitude and silence and he would give me a book and tell me, ‘Your life will not amount to anything if you don’t read. I could get you into the army when you are of age, but without an education you will never move up the ranks like me. But if you read you can make moves.’” he says. “We would often sit in his study, just reading.”

The army guy eventually met and talked to Ng’ash’s father. When he went to Sierra Leone for a peacekeeping mission, Ng’ash had to go back home. The beatings resumed, only worse.

Then he joined Menengai High School. There he made friends with makangas at the stage nearby. In them he found a family. He would hang out with them after school. They introduced him to weed. It’s from one of these boys that he got his first switch knife as a gift. His love for knives began. “I love knives, I collect them,” he says. “I have come to know that people fear knives more than guns. Knives mean business.”

“Did you ever cut anyone with a knife during your missions?”

“Yeah. I did,” he says slowly. “Small, painful, skin deep cuts are excruciating and effective.”

One day, he and his boys went to a house. There were nine chaps and three ladies there. He had just come from school, so he had stuffed his tie and school shirt in his bag and remained with his t-shirt on. One of the guys told him that they were there to make a brotherhood oath. A bowl was brought. Everybody cut their palms and let their blood drip into the bowl. They put some snuff in the blood, mixed it then they each dipped their finger into the blood and licked it while saying, “Ithuì aanake à nyùmba ya Mumbi, kûgerera thakame îno twàita na kûnywa ûmùthe, reke itûnyitithanie hamwe na tûtikanatigane ûnarîî na rìrìa tûgatigana kana ûmwe wîtû atûgarûrûke, gikûo nîkîo gîkamûkûra haría arí, thaai thathaiya thaai. Thayù!”

Translated loosely as: “We the men of the house of Mumbi, through this blood we have shed and taken today, may it bind us that we may never part. Should we part, if one of our own betrays us, death will find them where they will be.”

“For once in a my life, I felt like I belonged,” he says.

Then the robberies began; supermarkets, small establishments, hotels, shops, homes. Some were violent, others not. They went with guns and knives. Because his accomplices (I sound like the DCI) were gruff, dreadlocked fellas, his job would be to walk in with inquiries to stake out the place first because he was soft spoken and looked nothing like a thug. (Well, thuggery has changed so much, what with thieves wearing suits and ties.)

“One day we went to rob this pharmacy and when we got there, I realised the owner was a woman who knew me. I told the gang, ‘This lady knows me.’ They wanted to finish her but I asked to talk to her. I told her that this was not personal but that if she ratted me out and the men and I ended up in jail, it would get personal. The boys would come for her and she would be harmed. She was terrified but promised not to say a word. Even when the cops came later after the robbery, she never said a word and nobody ever bothered her.”

At home he started standing up to his step-mom. He was older now, and taller. He belonged to a gang of brothers and had a knife. One day he pulled out the knife on her and said, “If you lay your hands on me, two things will happen; one of us is going to leave this compound in an ambulance and the other will go to jail.” She stepped back. That evening she reported Ng’ash to his father. Ng’ash told his father that he continued to look the other way at what was going on in the home, choosing to believe his wife. He warned his father that one day something terrible would happen in that home if he didn’t do something. His father kept quiet.

Enter Njeri.

I know. Even I have been dying to introduce her.

Njeri was also a student at Menengai High. She came from a rich family in Nakuru, which meant she was in the cool crowd in school. Njeri was dating one of those rugby types who like to do squats in the gym. Ng’ash wasn’t cool and didn’t belong to this cool clique. She barely looked Ngash’s way because Ng’ash was, well, Ng’ash. But then one day he heard that Njeri had broken up with the rugby fella. This time he had loose float from robberies and since money gives one balls, one day he stepped up to the plate and said to her, “Hi, my name is Ng’ash and I have liked you for so long and not just because of your nyash.”

No, I lie. No. He didn’t say such corny things. I’m just being terrible.

I don’t know how he started talking to her but whatever it is he said worked because soon they started dating and then boom, she got pregnant. Then it became a big family fiasco; the boy from the other side of the tracks with the girl from the rich family. Her father – a doctor – was a tyrant. Long story short, it was agreed that she would have the baby. It was a girl. Ng’ash finished high school, went to uni, dropped out for lack of fees, then joined a teacher’s college.

He maintained contact with his gang. They would come and visit him all the way in college, a six-hour drive from Nairobi. Word went round that Ng’ash was in a gang. He was untouchable. One day Njeri called him and said she was at the airport and that her father was shipping her out of the country. She had been tricked into leaving, she said, to study nursing in Massachusetts, in the US. The baby was left behind. After that phone call, Njeri completely disappeared from the face of the earth. “Nobody would give me her contacts in the US. I had no email or physical address. Her parents despised me.”

After graduation, he went for his daughter and together they eked out a living in a one-room house in Nakuru on his meagre salary. He was earning 4K and rent was KShs 1,500. “I think the reason I’m so close to my daughter now is that it was just the two of us – we slept in the same bed, didn’t have much to eat most days, so we ate together, hung out together,” he says. “I remember that since I had no nanny, I would take her to school with me and leave her with the cook the whole day.”

One day his cousin asked to meet him in a bar called Legend. While there, guess who trots in five years later; Njeri. She was back from the US. It was like seeing a ghost. Her skin looked like she bathed in honey. She told him how her parents had manipulated their separation. She wanted them to be together again. So she came to Nairobi. He later quit his job and joined her and they got married, rather they started living together as man and wife. He got a teaching job in a school but then reconnected with his thug friends back here.

“After a few months, I quit my teaching job but didn’t tell my wife. I’d leave in the morning and hang out with these guys, planning and going for missions and then come back home as if I was from work,” he says. “The money I was making was so much, I didn’t need to be a teacher.”

They’d now gotten to a new level of robbery, even robbing banks. “We once robbed a bank in tao. Crazy. I had lots of money. You never really do anything with it, mostly because you know you will get more tomorrow or next week. So you blow it.”

“Your wife never suspected you were in a gang?” I ask.

“She did. She first got a hint of my other side when one time in Nakuru, after asking me to take her out to a club, we went albeit shingo upande. I was being trailed by some money hungry and vengeful cops. They pounced on us a few metres from the club and when they asked for money (which I had in my secret kapocket), I lied to them and said I didn’t have. They handcuffed me and asked her to go home. I knew they would take me somewhere and kill me. My only saving grace was that she refused to follow their instructions to go back home and stuck with me. I asked her to go and silently prayed but she stuck to her guns. Unbeknownst to her then, that saved me because as we were being taken around town, a gang member spotted us and word reached a “good law insider”, wheels turned and I was free…It was scary,” he continues.

“One day Njeri found my gun while cleaning the house. She confronted me. I denied it of course, and said the gun belonged to some friends who had just left it in my house. Njeri didn’t believe me. She said she knew that I was involved with bad company. She said she knew how people talked about me and feared talking to her in my presence, how people treated her. She asked me to stop, begged me to stop whatever I was doing. I told her I wasn’t doing anything.”

“Did you ever kill anyone?” I ask.

“No. But I cut up a few guys with my knife. I beat people up during robberies. But the gangs had inter-gang fights and I know that killings happened.”

“What was your state of mind during robberies? Were you high? Scared?”

“No. I never had fear. I’m a very calm person, even my students say that when I’m angriest I’m at my most calm.” He chuckles. “I don’t drink alcohol but my friends would be high. There is a lot of adrenaline involved during robberies because things can go wrong. When you go for a mission, you never know if you are coming back. I would always be very calm but each time I’d go back home after a mission, I’d throw up and tremble so much, I’d not be able to hold even a cup. I’d also fall very, very sick and would stay in bed.”

“So how would you switch from being a robber to being a father and a husband?”

“Well, marrying into money gave me some esteem issues and I always felt I had a point to prove,” he says. “I would always remind myself that money equals open doors and respect. I had an easy time switching from doting husband and father to this cold, seething and simmering-with-rage guy because for me, every mission was a chance to avenge the wrongs that had been meted on me. You only had to look at me the wrong way or just be cocky for me to be hard, swift and ruthless. Regrets would come later but at that moment, I had no feelings. My wife and daughters were David and his harp to my soul – they calmed me and brought out my alter ego. They made me loving, playful and happy.”

Anyway, shall we go back to the slum with the bosslady? The man finished counting the money. Bosslady then instructed him to give each man 100K. She never once touched the money, as if it would corrupt her purity. They then opened bottles of alcohol and celebrated. Ng’ash had a soda. “I never touched booze. I saw what it would do to my father, so it was never my thing,” he says. “Also, when you are sober during missions, you have clarity of thought and make less mistakes.”

Just before dawn, they leave boss lady’s house. They pass by a cafe and have breakfast then get a taxi and go mtaani. The plan is to go to their base and drink some more. Once they get out of the cab, Ng’ash realizes that the sole of his shoe is coming off so he stops by a cobbler and tells the rest that he will join them in 15 minutes. No sooner had he removed one shoe than he heard gunshots.

“They were loud and successive; papapapapapapa!” he says. “I knew what had happened. I just knew it. The cops had laid an ambush,” he says. “I quickly snatched up my shoe and went to the scene to join the crowd. Five of the seven guys had been killed on the spot. Some had bullet holes through their heads, the back of their heads wide open. It was horrible. And you know what the cops do after? They leave the scene in their Landcruisers, leaving the bodies there. After an hour, they come for the bodies. The reason they do this is to pass a message.”

At this point a teenage girl shows up at our table. She has one of those braided mohawks. She says, “Hello, sir,” and Ng’ash says, “Hii, Nina? How are you? Good to see you! You have grown so big! Where are you now?”

“I’m at USIU,” the girl says.

“Meet my friends Biko and his son Kim.” [I’d just picked Kim from school, he was bored out of his bum.]

The punk rocker leaves and I find it so weird that this guy is actually a teacher! That he marks books. He has a red pen. “I’m a pretty good teacher, my class does pretty well,” he told me later.

Anyway, after his friends are slain, he goes home, removes his clothes, takes his time showering then he takes off. He goes to his mother’s house far away, to lay low. Njeri comes back in the evening and calls him. She tells him, “I saw your friends. They had been shot dead. I have seen your clothes here. They have mud, the same mud their shoes had. Ng’ash, you were with them. I can’t live with you anymore, not like this. I can’t live with a thief. I’m leaving. You either join my church and repent or I’m taking our three children away.”

By this time he already had a new teaching job with this nice school I mentioned up there. He chose to join the church to save his marriage. “I didn’t understand what I was doing,” he says. “Initially I joined the church to save my marriage, to be with my wife. I didn’t even know how to pray.”

The following week, he met his other boys at their base – Waruku on Waiyaki way – and told them that he was done. He had found the Lord. They laughed and said this wasn’t a matatu you just alight from. This was a brotherhood. He was under oath. “Did you not taste the blood of your brothers? You can’t leave. You can lay low, you can be with your lord, but you can’t leave.”

Then threatening phone calls started coming. “We will finish you if you walk away.” He had confessed everything to his wife and so she knew his predicament. She would pray for him and they would pray together for the men to back off, for peace, for his life.

“I lived in constant fear. I always watched my back. I knew one day they’d kill me. What terrified me was not knowing when and where it would happen. The how I knew; a gunshot. It would be a motorbike gunman probably outside my door,” he says. “I’d carry my gun to school.”

“What?!” I say surprised. “Where would you keep it?”

“I’d keep it in my locker,” he says, like you would say, “I kept the leftover beans in the fridge.”

I found that horrifying; that you could drop your child to school and leave them in the hands of a teacher who had a gun in his locker! A gun with bullets! Ng’ash would carry his gun everywhere, waiting for the hitmen to come. The waiting drove him mad. The phone calls wore him out. He eventually went to (the irony) a cop friend for help. The cop said he could only help if he gave up the men. This put him in a catch-22 because if he gave up the men, more would be sent to kill him for sure. Ng’ash refused to give them up. He reached out to an old acquaintance in the government, a man who straddles both the land of the law and the land of the underworld, a fixer. The acquaintance brokered a meeting with another kingpin who said he would fix Ng’ash’s problem. For 30K per person, he would send a rival gang- a kamjesh – to finish the men after him. The kingpin needed 10 men for that job. Ng’ash neither had the money nor wanted to have those men killed.

You must be thinking, but he could have gone to Jesus, right? Isn’t that what Psalms 25 says? Does David not say in verses 18-20, “Look at my trials and troubles/ forgive me for all the sins I have done/ look at all the enemies I have/ they hate me and want to hurt me/ protect me! Save me from them! I come to you for protection…”

“Eventually I went to boss lady in the slums. I went and begged her to call off her hitmen. She refused. She said it was complicated. That you don’t walk away simply because you’ve changed your ways. ‘You know too much,’ she said, ‘you are a problem now.’ I pleaded for my life, promised that I would not snitch on them, that I was putting my life in her hands and that my word was good.” She finally relented and promised to call them off under two conditions; one he gives her his gun. The other condition was that she would one day call him for a big favour and when that call came he would have to honour it. She said, “If you ever snitch on us, know that I can always leave this place and start off another life in a different part of town, but you? I will have you hunted down; I know where you live, I know where your children go to school, I know where you work, I know your wife’s workplace, we will come for you. You owe me, always remember that. One day I will call.”

He kissed her ring, like you would the Godfather’s and he was free. Kinda.

The phone calls stopped coming. Peace prevailed. Njeri’s prayers worked. That was X years ago.

Now they have four children. Ng’ash doesn’t look over his shoulders anymore. He wakes up and goes to teach. When he comes back home, he’s a father and a husband. He doesn’t miss the violence. “Only when someone wrongs me and I have to walk away, then the anger smoulders as I feel the temptation to go rogue again. But my wife’s words ring in my mind. ‘If you are tempted, remember the kids and I and that your actions, arrest or death will hit us the most. We need you alive.’ That calms me down. I then pity the person as they don’t know how close they were to pushing me to their hurt. I still carry something whenever I travel, go out with my wife or out on my bike. Old habits.”

“Do you miss the money?”

“Oh, yes. The pay I have is good and my wife makes good cash but I miss the lifestyle. I used to take her to town boutiques and ask her to pick as much as she wanted without checking the prices. I could also afford frequent travels with the family. Then again, that cash has no peace. You are always watching your back and are constantly on edge. If it were not for Njeri, I wouldn’t be alive today,” he says. “Through her I discovered church and although I initially joined it to keep her, I found the Lord in it. I repented and gave my life to Him. I’m now very free. I’m an involved father to my kids, a good husband ( I think) to Njeri and a great teacher to my students.”

“Did you manage your anger issues?”

“It’s taken so long to handle them, mostly through prayers. But I still have some residual anger issues, only that I now know how to contain them.”

“How did the anger play out in your marriage?”

“You know, with all the violence out there, I have never even pointed at my wife with my finger. But I’m the kind of guy who if you crossed you would never forget. I would plan on how I would hurt you, taking my time to plan everything to the last detail and then execute. My wife knew. Sometimes when she angered me, I’d not say anything, I’d wait for my revenge.”

“How would you revenge?”

“I’d wait until she wants me to do something for her, like take her to a wedding or shopping, then I’d just say I’m tired and can’t go. My vindictive strain is still there but I’m handling it better now. I’m very lucky to have a wife like her. There aren’t any lengths she hasn’t gone to for me.”

I asked him why he’s risking talking to me about his past. Why can’t he let it go and live a quiet life?

“I have accepted that they can kill me if they want to. I have accepted to live under the shadow of ‘you owe me.’ But I was prayed for and the oath cancelled. A friend told me to write a book but I can’t, so this is the closest I can get to a book. I also wanted to let people know that not everybody who joins a gang does so by conscious choice, circumstances are powerful. I think the story needs to be heard; what you were before shouldn’t hold you prisoner. I’m now a father, a husband and a kick-ass teacher. When I stand before my class it comes to life.”

“What will happen when boss lady calls you?”

He thinks about it.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what will happen. I pray that she never has to call me, but I’m no longer afraid. I have no fear of what may happen to me because my life is in the hands of the Lord and my wife prays for me.”

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235 Comments
  1. What happens to those of us who already read it last week?
    I know, we are gonna have to wait next Tuesday

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        1. Happy ending.
          It is possible to go back to the drawing board and tell yourself, ” This is not the person I am going to be all my life”. Make peace with your past and create your own happily ever after

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        2. That’s true Zari, what life brings must be tackled in what ever way it comes. As long as your positive minded and with the right attitude mmmh Oh yeah and FAITH.

        1. Great piece worth reading. Let his past not define his future. He is also no longer a slave to sin and fear for he is a child of the most High God.

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    1. Damn.
      Two things;
      1. I never thought I’d see anyone, let alone Biko, write a line like ‘ No sooner had he removed one shoe than he heard gunshots’, beyond class 8 composition.
      2. This piece was definitely worth the two-weeks wait.

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    2. Lol,exactly my thought when I got the notification! Let’s just go to his IG and all and wait for next week!

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    3. Enjoy watching as we savour the tastiness just like you enjoyed watching as we painfully begged to have the post emailed to us

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  2. “…circumstances are powerful” – Powerful statement.
    Every time I read these stories, it’s like Breaking Bad just got another fiery extended season.
    All in all I thank you for these series Biko.

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    1. A riveting read, this one. He escaped death by a whisker, this guy. Let’s all hope the boss lady never has to call, though a part of me is sure she will, at the least expected of times.

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        1. God works in mysterious ways… Anyway my weekly dose of biko’s ‘opium’.
          Looking forward to reading your book, drunk.

  3. Those who read last week were instructed to write about their nipples. There is nothing interesting about my nipples to write home about. I will have to wait till Tuesday. And examine mine nipples a bit more in the meantime. Just in case there is some detail I miss.

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      1. Woow. This story got me hooked to the last word. Such crazy stuff actually happens. “Circumstances are powerful” __true…

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      1. The most captivating life story. I can really relate. Not because I had such a life but growing up in Huruma slums in Nairobi Eastlands, I saw tens of thousands of my buddies succumbing to such a life!!

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    1. In my opinion, I think he’s a changed man and the society should cut him some slack for telling his story and taking the right step towards becoming a better father and husband. That’s pretty much what matters. I think.

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  4. I don’t know. I don’t know what will happen. I pray that she never has to call me, but I’m no longer afraid. I have no fear of what may happen to me because my life is in the hands of the Lord and my wife prays for me.”

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  5. Remember the infamous, “Ni kama ndrama, ni kama findio”? Well, here is a swing-hard example.

    And this is written like a movie script. In scenes and bits. I read through the same way I watch a movie – with anticipation – and the story did not disappoint. I was here for all of it. If this were a book I’d buy it.

    Amazing though how much people can change.

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  6. Damn, but women who get married to men with kids…why can’t they just love them? She turned Ngash into a criminal. I was hoping he would do something to the step mom.

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  7. Ni kama drama… Ni kama video.

    I’m supposed to be invigilating an exam, Biko. I hope these people haven’t cheated as my eyes were glued to my screen.

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    1. Power of prayer and faith. Thank you Biko. Am always looking forward to your educative pieces.

      1
    1. So now that I had to find something to read since I had already read this week’s post, let me ask….. Does Larry die?

      Secondly I would like to request for a refund of my change which I left with a KBS conductor as I was so engrossed reading Larry’s story on the day I got the book from the store. Nitachukua mpesa

      2
    2. It’s a little happy ending because we don’t know what will happen if she calls back with a favour to be done!!!

  8. Circumstances are very powerful…….. We all want to belong. He craved for it. He belonged. He is of diifferent relationships- A ruthless man; A model teacher; A committed Father; A Loving Husband; A Church Faithful…………Who Is he, Really?

    He will have to pay his debt to the bosslady. He owes her his life.

    3
  9. I wrote a story once and titled it ‘a tale of badassery’. i was so sure i made that word up cause id never heard of it or seen it anywhere. but you used it!. i feel so validated

    4
  10. I feel his struggle, but we should never ignore the fact that he has hurt, beaten, stabbed and shot innocent people; people who have nothing to do with his past. It boils down to CHOICE, and he chose this life.

    8
  11. But how do you give him away like that Biko? Now Nina from USIU knows!!!! And i just got this weird feeling, you know when something terrible is happening (like a long battle with a terminal illness) then all of a sudden it starts getting nice and sunny and peaceful and everything is going so well then BOOM! the sun is gone (or the patient dies 🙁 Anyways I’m glad he found peace.

    12
    1. Don’t worry. Biko always changes the names of his charactes. I’m sure “Nina” is an alias for Dennis/Kevin and everyday students come across their former teachers. And the way Biko loves his privacy there was definitely no ‘meet Biko and his son Kim’ introduction.

      My only worry is will the Boss lady not see this post no matter how veiled in secrecy it is as a sell out.

      Anyway “Ngash” it seems you found your calling as a badass teacher.

  12. My comment from last week…….. This is like John Kiriamiti’s ,my life in crime, only Ng’ash found salvation early. Home should be where kids are loved and not turned into criminals. Thankful for Ng’ash’s wife, she was his God given faucet!

    6
  13. This is absolutely indescribable. One of the best reads.
    Sets the pace for the next season of G.O.T
    And, what’s the probability that ‘bosslady’ is reading this?

    3
    1. The world we live in, I always try to be calm enough to cooperate, be it a bad cop or gang. Wape kila kitu, stay calm & you live to earn more.

  14. Remember that blog ‘men make husbands’…..well, am so glad Ng’ash didn’t become anything like his messed up father. Now this to me is a happy marriage. The Lord has to be at the centre.

    Circumstances are powerful.

    I’m no longer afraid. I have no fear of what may happen to me because my life is in the hands of the Lord and my wife prays for me.” deep

    3
  15. Someone once said i write like Biko. I didn’t ask him who Biko wass, i asked google instead and it brought me here and to many other biko platforms. And i have to say no, i can’t do half wht this Zulu does. He is waaay up there! here is what I do. https://danmajani12.blogspot.com

    12
    1. I’ve enjoyed reading about the coffee jargon. I’m well informed now. I’m not a coffee person and so ordering coffee is such a task. Good writing.

      1
      1. Appreciated Cate. You are not alone. Coffee is an industry that needs to be broken down for Kenyans so that they don’t feel Java is only meant for wazungus and guyz with thick necks typing away projects on laptops. Ha.

        1
  16. My worry and sadness comes from the realization that messed up childhood breeds messed up adults, that’s deep..for men who go abandoning children, for the step mothers, why?.. and for the well brought up kids..the Njeri’s, how does it work?..And love mends people like Njeri’s and love breaks people..(His fathers love of him)..

    This story is unforgettable, Seems the Boss lady takes a line straight from the Godfather Corleone’s conversation with Bonasera the Undertaker, “Someday, and that day may never come, I’ll call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day – accept this justice as a gift on my daughter’s wedding day.”
    Everything has a price.

    13
  17. Your life will not amount to anything if you don’t read. I could get you into the army when you are of age, but without an education you will never move up the ranks like me. But if you read you can make moves.So,so touchy and true.Have read all the stories but this one beats them all.

    2
  18. “Njeri was also a student at Menengai High. She came from a rich family in Nakuru, which meant she was in the cool crowd in school. Njeri was dating one of those rugby types who like to do squats in the gym”

    Now this did take me back to my very short stint at Mene as it is known in the streets when it was still a mixed day school where all the cool kids that didn’t make it to Kabarak, Nakuru High, Moi Forces and the likes attended. Can he say Thank God Njeri loved a thug instead of those irresistible rugby guys…. this story would have otherwise ended differently.

    2
    1. Why are stepparents so cruel.
      Especially the step moms.I don’t get why someone should make a child’s life so miserable ,its like they forget how short life is and that they too could die and another step-mom would have to take over.people forget that everything comes back to haunt them.and the kids are the least
      responsible people regardless of the situation that led to the step-situation.

  19. “What you were before shouldn’t hold you prisoner”. Dude, not everyone can walk away from a gang. It’s always one way, you don’t turn back and can only go deeper. That was one tough battle, kudos.

    1
  20. Waaaaah, it is funny how shitty pay and an expensive life pushes gainfully employed people to do funny things. First, it was the banker who sold weed now the teacher with a gun (of course, there is another side to this story but we can’t ignore the money side). We have a thieving system that makes dishonest people out of people who are trying to live honestly. Anyway, like they say, now you know why that seemingly successful colleague seems to live a better life than you despite earning the same salary as you.

    7
  21. Try not to judge people. You never know what circumstances led to who they are today. “Circumstances are powerful.”

    2
  22. No regrets at all. This is a story that was worth a fortnight wait. Who’s that I heard saying ati people don’t really change?

  23. Many thoughts ran through my mind, I had to reread the story twice…as in read to the end, then started it all over again, twice.

    So, circumstances change people – does this mean there is no constant? As in the stable guy with a good head on his shoulders can flip any time and vise versa?
    Is there anything like character?

    Then I remember all the ‘good traits’ of a man: loves kids, teetotaler, calm even through a storm….this guy had them all, yet he was a thug! (Shudder)….

    Thank God for the good ending, I hope no other circumstances will cause him to go back to his ‘Saul’ days…may he forever remain a godly man…
    And it also read like a testimony: the power of a praying wife.

    God he with Ng’ash and his family

    PS: and we women must learn to love a man and love his children as well. How on earth can she demand her child be loved yet she mistreated his son? SMH…I hope karma will bitch out on her……

    3
  24. Am I the only one thinking that this dude got off too easy? What of the families he ruined? People who may have died following injuries sustained from his brutality? Mental health issues as a result of the trauma that he and his gang inflicted? What about justice for his victims? If he has truly repented and changed his ways then he should turn himself in and let justice prevail! Otherwise this so-called “change” is simply hogwash! He is a coward! He chose the easier way out so that he does not have to deal with the consequences of his actions.

    2
    1. I totally agree with you.. This is a person who found pleasure in taking what others had worked hard for, leaving his victims with lots of anxiety.. I’m sorry but this left a bitter taste in my mouth….

      1
    2. I thought so too. True repentance comes from facing the people he hurt. Even the Bible he now claims to believe in says that he should make peace with his brother before coming to the alter. So he must face his victims & ask for forgiveness.
      Choices have consequences, & all must pay the price of their choices. He is no different than a cat that sits in the chicken coop when it rains, while a few minutes before that it was busy hunting chicks & eating eggs.
      Too many stories of devils turning to God when situation gets too hot & all is forgiven – gospel artists rape a girl but since they said they were sorry & it was the devils doing, all is hunky dory…

      1
    3. Man always seeks vengeance.Thankfully, It is to God we confess and repent our sins and he has promised total forgiveness to those who do. The one thing, however, that God allows is for us to face the consequences of our actions. Do you see the sword of Damocles hanging over his head? That’s enough punishment.

      2
  25. He who finds a good wife finds a good thing for a good wife comes from the Lord. Look at Ng’ash now, where could he be without his wife? Surely God plans the path of a mans life.

    2
    1. The world is full of miseries and secrets…. Very Dark secrets sometimes all you need are prayers from a really good friend and make your wife that person…. INAMORATA

  26. Finally, we got to read the story! I have been sitting at the edge of my seat, not knowing what to expect…and you Biko…never disappoints.
    What I believe and is a deep conviction in my heart is that ‘hurt people hurt people’…I never judge people’s actions, they are an evolution of life. Our earliest lives determine how we evolve in the latter years…especially where suffering, hurt, despise, lack of love and other such emotions were experienced in our childhood.
    I have struggled with anger and revenge for many years, because I brought up apart from my parents in my childhood, never knew how to love…and I am slowly healing those parts of my life.

    3
  27. What a powerful story, its reminded me of Psalms 91 and the impact that a praying wife has over her husband and children.
    He may not have realized it but those prayers are what kept him alive .

  28. Big fallacy, this guy belongs to the jails, nothing like prayers here, ever lost a friend,relative or a family member to such gangs? you wouldn’t even read this story, there is no positive ending here, he deserves jail kabisa to pay for his sins, God will deal with him and his prayers later when he crosses over to the other world, alternatively, let him repent fully,hand over the other gang members to the right authorities as they are still killing others on his behalf, recall the oath…

    11
    1. @Narisha Kenei Totally understand where you are coming from. But, 2 wrongs don’t make a right. I have lost someone I loved dearly to a robbery with violence.
      Watched my SO bleed and die slowly after being stabbed but I would never harbor anger to the point of thinking that, I would be avenged if a former-robber/thief was punished for their mistakes.

      It would help if you assessed whee your anger is coming from because no matter what happens to Ng’ash, it will not bring you peace. You’ve got to find the peace to forgive and let go despite the hurt,
      I wish you well hun

      7
    2. Life is become life when we give people second chance. I don’t see any reason to demonize Nya’sh when he had chose to change.

      2
  29. I keep telling people, “watch very keenly the environment in which you raise your children, they determine who they become later”. Most of these people that do wierd stuff got it from their homes!! In some cases, their parents/care givers pushed them to those things.

    2
  30. I have no fear of what may happen to me because my life is in the hands of the Lord and my wife prays for me.

    I love it!

    1
  31. wtf man !! The fact that he actually came out and talked about it giving us vivid descriptions is on another level of badassery !!

    Laissez faire !

    2
  32. This is a story with so many twists, so intriguing and lots of lessons to learn.How you bring up your kids and the kind of environment they grow up really determines their future.Women stop being stuck in abusive marriages because of kids!You are doing them more harm.Strangers can impact your life..angels live among us.The army guy was an angel sent to deliver a message to Ngash.True love reigns..Njeri thank you for being a support system to Ngash. He is alive because of you.People change.You make choices and you can decide to make the right choice and abandon your past.Its never too late.If you get a second chance to live walk away from crime.Boss lady if you are reading this let the guy be.You can call him and ask him to coach your kids .

    5
  33. Nie reke ngwire wueeeh. Na si I was at the edge of my sit, for sure it’s been worth the wait.

    Phew!! Kundos to giving your life to God, you are no longer a slave to fear but a child of God.

    1
  34. I don’t want to sound insensitive or offend any of you, but this guy should be locked up. He belongs to the prisons. It is not safe to have him walking around. The fact that he’s a teacher makes him even more dangerous. A leopard can’t change its pants/spots. What if the Boss Lady comes to collect? My guess is he will fall off the wagon and do despicable things just to keep the Boss Lady off his family. This guy is a ticking time bomb. I’m sure some of you guys agree with me. Reformed my arse.

    4
    1. Exactly! I do not wish anyone to experience what some of us have at the hands of such goons. I don’t care what y’all are saying about praying wives etc if this is a true story, for all the victims of robbery with violence, I hope boss lady calls and calls soon!!!

  35. ” I have no fear of what may happen to me because my life is in the hands of the Lord and my wife prays for me.” This statement. It’s like when you know your mother prays for you. What could go wrong and your mother prays for you? But the greatest comfort is in knowing that your life is in the Lord’s hands.
    I have always loved the way you tell stories Biko, and this one did not disappoint.

    1
  36. Snippet episodes of the series Anger Management Season 2, albeit the Kenyan way. The bullet will never meet the meat.

    Heck I even don’t know what I am saying.

    1. Whoa, whoa. *Deep Sigh*

      My priest last Saturday, yes Saturday. We had a seminar that Saturday, said that God will forgive you all your sins, but will never save you from the consequences of your sin.

      1
    2. I don’t think the teacher has four children, it would be so easy to nail him because how many teachers who teach in the top five schools in Nairobi have four children? Actually make it top twenty schools and then we work from there.

  37. Who is to blame if circumstances determine your lifestyle or character?

    circumstances are powerful.

    The good Lord orders our future in this case.

  38. “I have no fear of what may happen to me because my life is in the hands of the Lord and my wife prays for me.”

  39. Let me trot out a buzz word ‘privilege’…like nothing i have gone through in my life makes me remotely empathetic to this story, it’s otherworldly what he’s done/gone through. Best of luck Ng’ash, you deserve it.

  40. Let’s just take a moment and celebrate Njeri, not necessarily for praying for Ng’ash, but for coming back and building that home and keeping the center board of that sail. Also, take note of the military man, how in silence, calmness and authority you can influence a boy in to reading, calmness and authority of any kind!

    1
  41. I wish i could say i’m happy for Ngash and Njeri. But i’m not. I’m a christian and i know i’ve also sinned and forgiveness is by God’s grace. I however lost my dad through a robbery incident (he was shot dead). My dad was a great man who lived without violence and he brought us up as such. Yet he died by a gun! In as much as Ngash has been forgiven, what is he doing to make amends? I wish the story was about the turnaround and the positive impact he is making. Not about his life of comfort. Yes, he may have had a hard life at his young age, but so many people have had it worse.

    3
    1. Exactly! I do not wish anyone to experience what some of us have at the hands of such goons. I don’t care what y’all are saying about praying wives etc if this is a true story, for all the victims of robbery with violence, I hope boss lady calls and calls soon!!!

  42. “My wife and daughters were David and his harp to my soul – they calmed me and brought out my alter ego. They made me loving, playful and happy.”…the other side of a man who is mature and who’s life was dictated by his upbringing.. May God’s peace be with you Nga’sh

  43. People who have been robbed at gunpoint and beaten during the robbery feel very different about this story.

    2
    1. Exactly! I do not wish anyone to experience what some of us have at the hands of such goons. I don’t care what y’all are saying about praying wives etc if this is a true story, for all the victims of robbery with violence, I hope boss lady calls and calls soon!!!

  44. How I wish that “vijana wa mtaani” would have a chance and go through the story. So much to take! The healing power of prayers.

    Next Tuesday is calling…

    1
    1. Happy you are back…. Started to follow you a long time ago (was introduced to you by a crush) and was super addicted and could not wait for a week to end to read a new post so i understand the comments of addicts over here, but i do not know what happened I prefer your short stories now over IG & fb …. N the addiction got replace by John Oliver . still can’t figure it out

    1. It is nice and all that he has changed but that doesn’t negate the fact that he robbed people of their hard earned money and injured them. Saying he has changed, his wife is praying for him and all that is okay but not enough. He can’t just go on with his normal life as if nothing happened. His former colleagues are still continuing with their robbery and violence, and young men are joining such gangs. At the very least, he should get into mentoring young men who are at risk of joining such groups, maybe change lives or something. That way he would play his part in reducing crime. How is continuing with your life as if nothing happened, a sign of repentance ? Find other boys who were in the same space as you were some time ago and make positive impact, just as the soldier did in yours.

      2
  45. Happy you are back…. Started to follow you a long time ago (was introduced to you by a crush) and was super addicted and could not wait for a week to end to read a new post so i understand the comments of addicts over here, but i do not know what happened I prefer your short stories now over IG & fb …. N the addiction got replace by John Oliver . still can’t figure it out

  46. wow just wow. This was worth the wait Biko. You should think about screen writing. This is a really
    good synopsis and would make a good thriller something to the likes of “Al Hayba”. I recommend season 1 if you haven’t watched.
    I like how there is hope that his life is going well and the hopelessness of that ever impending phone call .
    I’m not sure how to fafanua “Circumstances”…I suppose … “HALI NI NGUVU”.

    3
  47. Enyewe parenting is everything. If only his parents had their sh*t together. We can’t transfer our issues to our kids y’all! Circumstances are everything!
    This was a great read.

  48. I’m livid. You should be if you have suffered in the hands of these gangs. They robbed my newly established biz lots of money which i had borrowed to start it. Shot me on my thigh. Stabbed my customers taking away their phones. And the guy who came first to lay the ground is the exact description of what Ngash would do. This guy should be dead because of the suffering I went through after. Paying debts that never helped me. My money in debts that was splashed in expensive boutiques on a woman who supposedly prayed. This is madness. Biko you shouldn’t listen to these stories. Sometimes you disappoint.

    1
  49. Greater is He who is in you then He who is in the world
    Jesus is in you Boss lady’s got nothing on you.She will never call do not fear

  50. Biko!
    Did you jest say that those pple who read this article last week should jest write about their nipples?well,here we go

    NIPPLES ARE AS UNIQUE AS FINGERPRINTS!

    1
  51. Paul did more good free than he could have done had he been held behind bars for persecuting the church. Let us stop with the casting of stones and consider what God has done: Who can straighten what He has made crooked?

    3
  52. The system we are living in is so messed up,people are living double lives nothing frightens me anymore. Now this is a teacher , previously we had a Peddler banker, A man of cloth resurrected a dude who was stinkingly starving the other day. Dear Lord what a time to be alive……This script needs a touch of DJ Afro in closing remarks

    2
  53. Biko, Biko, Biko, you are a genius, reading these comments show that many people have believed it to be a true story, fiction at its best. Can’t wait for the next episode.

  54. I am glad that he found the Lord. Truth is that God is so merciful and once you accept his blood to cleanse you, he nolonger holds you captive. Let him not get worried of the madam boss. Great is he that is in us than the one that is in the world. 1john 4:4
    I shed tears while reading this story

  55. … horrific and thrilling husband story. Tasty to the core. Marriage is more than a husband, wife and the children certainly.

  56. Biko,my matter has been read out in court and stood over while i was busy reading about Ng’ash….nitaambia boss nilikuwa wapi?

  57. The thought of waiting for just that one phone call upsets my stomach!# power of a praying woman/wife/mother is priceless

  58. It’s a little happy ending because we don’t know what will happen if she calls back with a favour to be done!!!

    1
  59. IMHO…You don’t just get to walk away scot-free just because you throw around Jesus name. This guy has caused sufferings to innocent people. Hopefully, he’ll pay for it somehow. And before you start lecturing me on forgiveness and prayers, kindly be advised that I neither believe in hell or paradise. We finish it all here on earth.

    4
  60. Well now one of my life questions has been answered, when I see those captured crimes on cctv cameras and see a middle age guy doing the robbery and wonder how he is still thugging at his age..Riveting read as always the pen being mightier than the pen knife.

    1
  61. The environment the youngsters grow up, shapes and moulds their adult life, thus the good book teaches us in Prov.22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

    A violent dad, lack of motherly love turned him somehow to whoever.

    Wish he remained in the barracks, but just a wish.

  62. Good Lord.

    The complete trust and confidence in this makes me weak .”I have no fear of what may happen to me because my life is in the hands of the Lord and my wife prays for me”

    I want such a spouse.

    1. ” and if you don’t read , your life won’t amount to anything,, ” Truly God changes people, what a lady njeri is.

  63. And now we got Njeri arrested.

    https://nairobinews.nation.co.ke/news/queen-of-highway-gang-busted-with-stolen-goods-worth-millions

    1
  64. This is like reading the book, “My life in crime or My life with a Criminal”
    But again, a happy ending. He says, “what you were before shouldn’t hold you prisoner, this here is life.”
    Such a Pulsating piece.

  65. “I think the reason I’m so close to my daughter now is that it was just the two of us – we slept in the same bed, didn’t have much to eat most days, so we ate together, hung out together,” he says. “I remember that since I had no nanny, I would take her to school with me and leave her with the cook the whole day.”

    Warmed my heart.

  66. It reads like a script through and through! The plot is entirely amazing. The entire story has sort of tracked me back to the movie, The Hate You Give. This is the world we live in: Of crime, criminals, saved gang members, etc, etc

    https://reshonlineblog.wordpress.com/2019/04/15/rippled/

    1
  67. Interesting read… Crazy story, though… Making some misdemeanors seem cool.
    The Kyuk was very poorly written.

  68. I visualize everything as I read this story, I even think of how I would have persuaded him to go easy with gangs if he were my classmate. Powerful….

  69. This one was off the hook. I would never have guessed how it ended. Being a believer myself, I really look forward to these transforming stories.

  70. Love the honesty that he has about dealing with his past. How he’s realised that the only way forward was to deal with it so it wouldn’t interfere with his present,that choices do have consequences and only maturity allows one not only to handle the consequences but deal with the issues that arise .. and it helps to have that one Njeri in your corner..

    1. Me. Not this one only. Been doing a marathon of all his past stories. Now that we are working from home. I can never get bored reading them. Learning new things and vocabulary.

  71. , “Ithuì aanake à nyùmba ya Mumbi, kûgerera thakame îno twàita na kûnywa ûmùthe, reke itûnyitithanie hamwe na tûtikanatigane ûnarîî na rìrìa tûgatigana kana ûmwe wîtû atûgarûrûke, gikûo nîkîo gîkamûkûra haría arí, thaai thathaiya thaai. Thayù!”

    Translated loosely as: “We the men of the house of Mumbi, through this blood we have shed and taken today, may it bind us that we may never part. Should we part, if one of our own betrays us, death will find them where they will be.”