Once celebrated as the green city in the sun, Nairobi is now grappling with the dark side of its rapid growth — a surge in land grabbing, street crime, and worsening urban decay. As the capital’s population pushes past four million, infrastructure and services have failed to keep pace, exposing deep cracks in governance and planning. From illegal land deals to brazen daylight muggings, residents are increasingly questioning whether City Hall has lost control of Kenya’s economic powerhouse.
For many, the human cost of corruption is devastating. University of Nairobi graduate Michael Mwaura thought he had secured his family’s future when he built a home in Ngong, only to be evicted after discovering his title deed was fake. His land, authorities later claimed, belonged to a senior politician. Cases like Mwaura’s have become alarmingly common, with cartels allegedly working alongside county and national officials to sell public land to unsuspecting buyers. Former Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero once revealed that over 1,000 parcels of public land were illegally seized between 2013 and 2016 — a figure that underscores the scale of the crisis.
The problem extends beyond land fraud. Residents say the city has grown increasingly unsafe, with muggings, harassment, and uncollected waste defining daily life in the central business district. The resignation of Deputy Governor Polycarp Igathe in early 2018, following disagreements with then-Governor Mike Sonko, further exposed the city’s administrative dysfunction. While Sonko later formed an anti-mugging unit to restore order, critics argue that his efforts were reactive and short-lived, doing little to address the root causes of unemployment and urban poverty that fuel crime.
Experts warn that Nairobi’s challenges reflect a deeper governance failure. Poor planning, population pressure, and entrenched corruption have eroded the city’s reputation as a regional hub. Economists now fear Nairobi could lose its competitive edge to cleaner, better-managed capitals like Kigali and Addis Ababa. As Kenya looks toward the future, the question remains whether new leadership and reforms can revive a city once hailed as a symbol of African modernity — or whether Nairobi will continue to sink under the weight of its own mismanagement.