“Since the 1970s matatus have been indispensable to the economy of Nairobi, indeed to the whole Kenyan economy. “
Kenda Mutongi, author of “Thugs or Entrepreneurs? Perceptions of Matatu Operators in Nairobi, 1970 to
the Present.”
A network of privately-owned and operated vans and minibuses, colloquially named matatus, have dominated Kenya’s urban public transportation industry since the 1950s [Ramussen 418]. The matatu industry began as a scattered movement of Kenyan entrepreneurs driving “pirate taxis” [Heinze 8]. When the then colonial government of Kenya failed to supply affordable and accessible public transport for its growing African working class, the “pirate taxis” planted a seed for an industry that would rise up to fulfill urban Kenya’s unanswered demand. Today, the matatu industry services over two-thirds of Nairobi’s residents [Salon and Aligula 72] and is one of the country’s largest sectors of employment [Heinze 5]. Read more about colonial beginnings and the circumstances that called for the rise of the matatu industry.
Over the next few decades, a complex and sometimes violent power struggle would ensue between matatu owners and the Kenyan government, matatu owners and matatu drivers, and even amongst matatu associations themselves. Powerful economic players in the matatu industry, such as the Matatu Vehicle Owners Association (MVOA) in the 1960-70s and the Mungiki in the 1990s-early 2000s, would rise to political prominence not only within the matatu industry but as its representative to the Kenyan public and its government. Under President Jomo Kenyatta, the MVOA successfully lobbied for the exemption of matatus from Public Service Vehicle (PSV) license [Mutongi 551]— circumventing the private-public partnership that granted one company, the Kenya Bus Service (KBS), a legal monopoly in Kenya. The MVOA, in the words of researcher Robert Heinze, “acted as a representative on a national level” (formalized in 1979) by presenting a united front for matatu owners to negotiate with Kenyatta, but also acting as a self-regulating mechanism within the industry [Heinze 10]. The MVOA maintained order by controlling matatu terminals with the heaviest traffic, which was usually those near the central business district in Nairobi, and delegating other tasks to smaller organizations “integrated as branches” [Heinze 10]. When matatu operators were interviewed by the Mazingira Institute in 1982, they cited “[b]etter, organization,” “[l]ess police harassment” and “[p]rovides parking” among the most common benefits a membership in a matatu association could provide [Kapila et al 201].
Newly equipped with Kenyatta’s government tacit approval, a more positive public perception of matatus soon followed. Despite passenger accounts of reckless driving in vehicles [Mutongi 553] employed beyond their suggested life, pre-1980s perceptions of the matatu industry were cautiously optimistic: “[matatu] owners, who were often drivers [pre-1980s], were heralded as enterprising, hard-working citizens, imbued with the spirit of Harambee, the spirit of cooperation and of the desire to develop the new nation of Kenya” [Mutongi 551].
When legal means of protest were legal, it seemed the matatu industry could cooperate with the government (and it with the industry) to maintain order and work towards safer matatus while preserving the entrepreneur spirit of matatus. Private-public partnerships had the potential to succeed, if perhaps it allowed for the voices of the many pre-existing matatu owners and operators to have a say. However, this cautious optimism of the early matatu industry would quickly be stomped out during Daniel arap Moi’s presidency. Under Moi’s “de jure one-party state,” harsher regulations were put in place on matatu vehicles and a government-sponsored competitor to matatus named Nyayo Bus, meaning “footsteps” following Kenyatta and Moi [Heinze 19]. Read more on President Moi’s involvement in colonial beginnings. Threatened by the political power the MVOA held, which Heinze argued was seen as “a dangerous challenge..[in] a one-party system” [Heinze 13], Moi banned the MVOA and a few other select matatu associations. It was at this crucial turning point in the late 1970s which a previously apathetic government that was beginning to see cooperation with the matatu industry as a plausible future turned instead to the criminalization of it.
The Matatu Industry 