No Passengers, No Problem: Watch Kitale Matatu Crews Hold Relay Races During Nationwide Strike
While tens of thousands of Kenyans struggled to get to work on Monday, matatu crews in Kitale found their own way to wait out the day: they turned the town’s usually chaotic bus park into an improvised athletics track and held relay races with sticks for batons.
The scenes at the Kitale terminus stood in sharp contrast to the transport paralysis gripping the rest of the country as the nationwide matatu strike over soaring fuel prices brought public transport to a near-complete standstill. Touts and drivers sprinted around the empty bus park in mock relay races while pedestrians, small-scale traders, and onlookers cheered, laughed, and shouted encouragement from the sidelines.
What would ordinarily be a noisy, crowded hub filled with revving engines, conductors shouting out routes, and commuters rushing in every direction had been reduced to an open playground for idle crews with nowhere to go and nothing to do.
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This is Kitale..bus station turned to Athletic zone pic.twitter.com/0MCsakJpV3ā Mastardcesh (@Mastardcesh) May 18, 2026
Kitale was not alone. In Bomet, matatu operators similarly converted their bus terminus into a makeshift recreation ground. Videos shared on X showed operators running around, laughing, and playing games in the middle of the park while others watched from nearby groups, the atmosphere more festival than protest.
The spontaneous bursts of humor offered brief relief in a day otherwise defined by canceled travel plans, frustrated commuters, and mounting economic losses on all sides.
The Numbers Behind the Laughter
The lighthearted scenes, however enjoyable, could not mask the scale of disruption unfolding across Kenya. The strike traced its roots directly to the May 14 fuel price review, which pushed the cost of Super Petrol up by Sh16.65 per liter and Diesel by a steep Sh46.29 per liter, increases that operators said made running their vehicles financially unviable.
#RejectFuelPrices situation at TransNzoia, Kitale Bus Park pic.twitter.com/6arT0jBDvv
ā Henix Obuchunju (@Obuchunju) May 18, 2026
The Matatu Owners Association put a hard figure on the damage by Monday afternoon. Chairman Karakacha told a media briefing that the sector had already absorbed losses surpassing Sh500 million in a single day, and he made clear that operators were prepared to keep absorbing those losses until the government responded.
“We have already lost more than Ksh 500 million as a sector, and we are ready to continue bearing those losses until the government addresses the issue of high fuel prices,” Karakacha said.
The association accused the government of repeatedly ignoring appeals for dialogue and failing to put in place any meaningful cushion for transport operators struggling under the weight of rising operational costs.
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