Kondele, one of Kisumu city’s satellite towns, has its bright and dark side.
Though it is known for violence, it boasts a unique vibrancy that comes with the night life and its associated businesses.
The vibrant town centre is also popularly known as Darfur and Army Barracks owing to its volatile nature during elections or protests, which is why it is profiled as a hotspot for violence.
Kondele has witnessed chaotic scenes for decades.
Its history of violence began in 1969, when founding President Jomo Kenyatta clashed with his first vice-president Jaramogi Oginga Odinga as the former presided over the official opening of the Soviet-built New Nyanza Hospital (Russia).
In 1992, the town saw clashes when Kenya’s struggle for multiparty democracy was at its peak.
Live bullets and tear gas were used to disperse protesters between 2007 and 2017, and some deaths were reported.
Kondele is now regarded as the ‘Kisumu’s sin city’ because of the twilight ladies that walk the stretch from the Kondele-Kakamega road to Kondele-Carwash-Kibos road.
But there is also growing concern over rising insecurity in the town centre, where idle armed young people snatch mobile phones and flee on motorcycles. This happens though there is a police station a few metres from the Kondele roundabout.
However, it is also a thriving business area despite its bad name.
Kondele hosts more than four major supermarkets, about nine renowned nightclubs, hotels with good accommodation, hardware stores, timber yards, numerous shops and medical facilities, making it almost a one-stop shop for residents and tourists.
The centre borders the informal settlements of Manyatta, Nyawita and Obunga where a majority of the population live below the UN’s definition of poverty of less $2 per day, translating to about Sh230.
Located almost 200 metres from Kondele on the way to the city centre is Co-operative Bank and the Aga Khan and Avenue hospitals.
But there are mega plans to transform Kondele to an economic hub to power Kisumu’s economy.
The change, says acting Kisumu City Manager Abala Wanga, will include decongesting a flyover in the town by removing traders who operate beneath it.
“We plan to bring sanity to this area of Kisumu. This will include focusing all the businesses on one side of Kondele and zoning it to create order,” he said.
The trucks and lorries that ferry building materials and are usually packed on both sides of the flyover will also be moved to a different area.
He added that most businesses will be located on the Kondele-Car Wash stretch.
Mr Alfunzi Mandila, a boda boda operator, decries the dumping of garbage on the sides of roads.
“We have seen tremendous change in Kondele but the issue of garbage disposal and the general public health of the centre is still a major problem. We need proper skips or bins for dumping waste as well as at least one public toilet,” he said.
If you are in Kondele and you suddenly get the urge to answer the call of nature, you may have to hold it, because there are no public toilets around.
Kondele MCA Joachim Swagga Oketch grew up in the ward. He has seen the area change from one with mud-walled houses to high-rise residential buildings now.
“The growth experienced is as a result of the road expansion, improved street lighting, construction of feeder roads to ease access and increased investment that has changed the outlook of Kondele,” he said.
More infrastructure developments are expected under the second phase of the Kenya Informal Settlements Improvement Project (KISIP), he said.
Under the World Bank-funded programme, key feeder roads will be tarmacked. These are the Corner Mbuta-Mosque road, Obinju- Corner Mbaya, Corner Maji-Carwash, Tunnel-Kondele and Call Box-White Gate.
“Apart from the tarmacking of the roads, there will be improved lighting through erecting 12 high mast floodlights spread across the centre to improve security,” Mr Oketch said.
The drainage system will also be fixed and major markets like Kosawo and Manyatta Fish completed to accommodate traders who will be removed from beneath the flyover.
Branding and civic education remain crucial to the transformation of ‘New Kondele’, he said.
“We are branding Kondele as a ‘business hub’ and a 24-hour economy that is attracting malls. We are also engaging in civic education for our young people and planning to empower them through a programme similar to Kazi kwa Vijana so that they do not remain idle,” he said. BY DAILY NATION