Drama as irate residents hold Kenya Power staff hostage in Kasarani
For over six hours, residents of Kamae Village held four Kenya Power (KP) officials hostage in Kasarani constituency, Nairobi County.
The residents were protesting a drawn-out outage in the area.
The residents, led by irked students are reported to have been from Kenyatta University, were protesting to the power supplier over darkness for a period of one week.
Furious that they had made numerous reports in futility, the irate consumers deflated KPLC’s vehicle tyres before they charged towards the four officials who had gone to the village to replace a faulty transformer that caused the week-long outage.
Speaking to People Daily, one of the frightened KP officials said they were held hostage from 10am to around 12pm when police officers drawn from Kahawa West rushed in the area to control the situation.
Even after police arrived, the agitated locals continued kept vigil until power was restored to their homes.
“We are still here but currently replacing the faulty transformer. We are shocked we might not leave any time soon because there is power outage across the country but these people don’t want to hear that. They want power back to their homes but we are lucky that police are now around,” one of the frightened KPLC officials told People Daily by the time of filing this story.
According to the students, KPLC and local leaders have been taking them in circles whenever they complain over the matter.
The students decried that being their season of sitting exams, preparing for the trials has been greatly affected by darkness, a situation they also claimed has resulted in increased criminal activities such as robbery in the area.
“We are giving KPLC an ultimatum of two hours to restore lights here otherwise this lorry of theirs will not move an inch. I also want to send a strong warning to leaders, you must deliver on your promises,” one of the students said.
By the time of going to press, KPLC apologized to Kenyans for having lost bulk power supply to various parts of the country due to a system disturbance.
“We are working to restore normalcy within the shortest time possible. An update on the restoration progress will be issued in due course. We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience caused,” the statement read in sections.
