Kieni Member of Parliament Njoroge Wainaina spent a tense afternoon locked inside his flagship Chieni Supermarket in Nyeri Town on Wednesday after anti-government protesters overran the building and chased away the police.
Witnesses say officers posted at the entrance were forced to retreat shortly after midday when a swelling crowd shifted its march toward the premises. Minutes later, the MP slipped inside, bolted himself into an inner office and defiantly told volunteer marshals, “I can’t just sit at home and watch my business become endangered again, I have to do something.”
For more than an hour, protesters hurled stones at the shuttered storefront while a skeleton staff cowered in storerooms. Police returned around 2 pm, firing tear-gas canisters to clear Kimathi Street, but running skirmishes continued in the CBD. A supermarket employee confirmed at 3 pm that the MP remained trapped as officers battled to reclaim the area.
The confrontation unfolded on the first anniversary of nationwide demonstrations against last year’s Finance Bill. In cities from Nairobi to Mombasa, crowds poured back into the streets demanding an end to police brutality and rising living costs, prompting fresh clashes with riot units and renewed allegations of live rounds being fired.
Nyeri protesters carried their own grievances. Last June, three supermarkets linked to Mr Wainaina were looted and one was set ablaze, losses the lawmaker later pegged at Sh567 million. Wednesday’s face-off revived that anger.
Ian Mbugua, a 26-year-old protester nursing watery eyes outside a shuttered chemist, said the heavy deployment only inflamed tensions. “One of the main reasons we are picketing today is because of police brutality, seeing their vehicles parked across town feels like gaslighting,” he argued.
By late afternoon, shopkeepers were rolling down metal doors as rogue elements infiltrated the march. Residents reported sporadic bursts of tear gas and the wail of fire-engine sirens echoing through the town center.
Last years looting of the same supermaket:
