Two fire incidents in the recent past in Umoja Estate points to the fight for space in an increasingly ghettoish estate.
The sprawling dustpan with badly built uninhabitable buildings, unplanned tin kiosks, and poorly managed roads with nonexistent drainage has attracted a lot of weird characters who are pushing more than alcohol to young residents in the estate.
According to sources, the axis of evil revolves around three leaders, MP George Theuri, Umoja 1 Ward MCA Mark “Ronaldo” Mugambi and Umoja 2 Ward MCA Joseph Donji.
The three are said to have an insatiable appetite for land to build restaurants and car washes in order to launder funds from loot and illicit businesses.
This explains why in the two fire incidences, one at Tena (2020) and the recent one at Stella, along outer ring road, have never been booked by the Buruburu Police Station.
Traders have lost property, many livelihoods have been fucked up by the fires but the police turn away traders who want to have an Occurrence Book number.
It is highly unusual how drugs such as Kuber have infiltrated Umoja Estate.
The commonly used drug in the past was Marijuana, and alcohol, but hard drugs have become easily available in the street.
Umoja Estate and its environs also harbor pimp and prostitute business, though there are pockets of unregulated brothels all over the Eastlands, one open-air market for anything goes is at Mutindwa Market stretch along outer ring road.
At the fire sites, one face is always lurking, that of Mugambi Ronaldo.
If you ask any trader that lost valuables in the fires if he (Ronaldo) is in the area to collect names and other information so as to help them, the answer is always negative.
It is the traders that volunteer information that alleged Mugambi and Theuri plan to grab their land so as to build a bar and restaurant.
It is curious how Jam Rescue caught fire, yet there’s a building in the middle that went unscathed.
