Operations at Githurai in Ruiru, Kiambu County were paralysed for hours as small-scale traders who operate on makeshift kiosks protested planned eviction.
While burning tyres and barricading the road connecting the busy town with Thika superhighway, the traders in their tens took issue with a sole businessperson from the area whom they accused of scheming to have them evicted to put up modern kiosks on their premises.
The traders accused the businessperson of working in cahoots with notable government officials to facilitate their eviction for self-enrichment.
Speaking Tuesday, after disrupting operations in the busy town, the traders recounted waking up to find their stalls marked for demolition by the Kenya Urban Roads Authority (KURA) following the expiration of a previously issued notice.
A letter from KURA whose authenticity, journalists could not verify, indicated that the traders had encroached the five-kilometer Githurai-Mwihoko road.
The letter had stated the traders on several occasions had been advised to remove all encroaching structures in futility.
Having failed to remove their structures, KURA in the letter stated that it would forcibly remove them at their own cost upon expiry of the issued notice.
Defiant traders would further be subjected to criminal prosecution as per Section 49 (6) of the Roads Act 2007.
But irked by the move, the traders decried that the government has no intentions of expanding the road and that their eviction is a plot to benefit unscrupulous individuals seeking to put up modern kiosks on the same premise.
They called on President William Ruto to intervene and give them an alternative area to operate from, saying they have known Githurai as home for decades.
