Central Kenya reels as families bury sons lost to alcohol

In the second week of March, residents of Gatitu village, about 10 kilometres from Nyeri town along the Nyeri-Karatina highway, blocked the road with twigs and lit bonfires to protest the deaths of four men within a week.

The deaths were not mysterious. Infuriated locals claimed the four men had died after consuming illicit alcohol.

To them, and to the local administrators, the presence of such brews, often made in dingy structures and sold in seedy bars, was an open secret.

Like many rural shopping centres, bars in Gatitu operate almost around the clock, with patrons constantly trickling in and later staggering back in the village. Prices are low enough for most to afford something within their means.

Gatitu, in particular, has long been known for cheap alcohol, and the four men are believed to have consumed some of the lowest-priced drinks available in the trading centre.

Nyeri governor Mutahi Kahiga convened a meeting in the aftermath of these protests and ordered the immediate shutdown of all bars in the small town and revocation of licenses, pending fresh vetting by the County Alcoholic Drinks Control Licensing Committee.

The governor wondered why Gatitu shopping centre, home to about 20,000 people, had over 30 bars.

“It is the time for enforcement of rules because, as we are busy talking, our people are still getting drunk and others are lying dead in the mortuary,” he said, hinting at only allowing licensure for ten bars.

After a fiery exchange with some bar owners who were opposed to the move, Dr Kahiga challenged them to move to court if unhappy with his decision.

He was not budging, he said. Nothing was going to bring back to life those who had succumbed to alcohol, and the only proper counter for that was to run out of town those responsible for the deaths.  

Gatitu has long been infamous for its alcohol dens and a deep culture of drinking. When he made an early morning stopover at the shopping centre in late April, Chris Kimaru, a counsellor, accredited recovery coach and rehabilitation centre manager at Kiambu’s Resolution Recovery Centre (RRC), was alarmed by the number of men idling outside bars, waiting for them to open. It was barely seven in the morning.

“They do not own any business here in the shopping centre. They are here for alcohol. All of them men,” Kimaru, himself once a hapless addict, noted.

The situation in Gatitu, while grave and receiving attention, especially after the death of the four men, is not isolated.

“If I go to Karatina or Kiaruhiu, my local shopping centre, I find the same thing happening. In Kiambu, for instance, Karura ka Nyungu, where I often pass, I still see people looking for alcohol when I am out walking in the morning.” 

According to Chris, several actors have contributed to the persistence of the crisis, especially in Central Kenya.

He especially points to politicians, accusing some of failing to prioritise the fight against illicit alcohol, which, year after year, continues to claim lives.

He alleges that certain leaders, even those who opposed a crackdown launched about three years ago, benefit politically from the deaths of alcohol consumers.

“When these people die from consumption of these brews, the politician attends the funerals, donates a few thousand shillings, and addresses gatherings, of course, advancing his political agenda. It is very unfortunate,” he says.

Political agenda

Kimaru also faults administrators, saying many are complicit after allegedly taking bribes to allow the brewing, transport and sale of illegal alcohol.

During the Gatitu protests in March, some demonstrators demanded the transfer of police officers stationed in the area, accusing them of colluding with illicit brewers and therefore being unable to lead any meaningful crackdown.

For Kimaru, strong community willpower could go a long way in curbing the sale of illicit alcohol.

“In my village, there was a time when we said ‘No’ in unison to the sellers of this killer alcohol and those bars were shut down. Slowly, sobriety returned to the village. The more people watch in silence as the problem grows, the harder it becomes to stop it in future, and the more people we lose in the meantime,” he says.

For years, Central Kenya has been closely associated with alcoholism as a key social vice, with sporadic protests in some towns following the emergence of illicit brews, rising alcohol-related crime, and cases of men abandoning their homes or failing to meet family responsibilities due to addiction.

As political temperatures rise ahead of the 2027 General Election, former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has repeatedly accused the government of deliberately abandoning the war against illegal alcohol in Central Kenya, alleging it is part of a broader political strategy to allow its resurgence for political gain.

In a sustained anti-government tirade, which began in 2024, Gachagua has said the government plans to poison the region to weaken its stab at power in 2027.

“Since I was removed from office, all the bad alcohol has been reintroduced to the mountain to destroy our people and reduce our voter numbers,” he said in December 2024. “Chiefs have been told to look the other way as our youth are being targeted.”

Data from the National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (NACADA) paints a worrying picture in Central Kenya and other parts of the country.

An earlier 2014 report showed that 84 per cent of Kenyan youth aged between 16 and 24 were involved in drug abuse.

According to the 2022 National Survey on the Status of Drugs and Substance Use in Kenya, the minimum age of initiation into alcohol use was as low as seven years.

The report further found that one in every eight Kenyans aged between 15 and 65 was a current alcohol user—about 3,199,119 people. Among them, one in every five males (2,511,763) and one in every twenty females (687,356) were using alcohol at the time of the survey.

Interestingly, Western Kenya recorded the highest prevalence of current alcohol use at 23.8 per cent, followed by the Coast at 13.9 per cent. Central Kenya ranked third at 12.8 per cent.

Family stances

Nearly half of Kenya (48.5 per cent) had the perception that there was an increase in the number of bars in the last five years in their community. In this metric, the Central region led with a perception level of 74.1 per cent, followed by Nairobi, with 65.3 per cent and the Eastern region with 47.8 per cent.

A paper titled Family Factors Contributing to Alcohol and Drug Abuse in Juja Sub-County, Kiambu County, which was published in the International Academic Journal of Arts and Humanities in June 2024, showed that the prevalence of alcohol intake was dependent on several factors, including family stances towards it.

If alcohol and drug use are considered normal or accepted within the family, the paper found, then the likelihood of initiation into alcohol use among family members may be higher.

Other contributing factors include a history of family drug use, where long-standing patterns of alcohol and substance abuse create a cycle that is difficult to break.

Marital conflict has also been cited as a trigger for increased alcohol and drug use, alongside poor parental supervision and association with delinquent peers. High levels of stress further compound the problem, pushing many into substance abuse.

While the alcohol menace has swept through Central Kenya, tearing apart families and derailing the futures of many young people, it has also spread to other regions, raising concern in a country increasingly vulnerable to the crisis.

The situation has become so severe that President William Ruto, in his 2026 New Year address, dedicated part of his speech to the issue, expressing concern that it was spiralling out of control.

He declared alcohol and drug abuse a national emergency and warned that any public officer found to be aiding or abetting drug trafficking or illicit alcohol networks would be dismissed and prosecuted.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) also has had numerous campaigns that, to these brewers whose hideous plans are to make money at the expense of people’s health, and sometimes life, do not matter.

In 2017, it released a report explaining how consumption of illegal brews negatively impacts the skin, cardiovascular system, reproductive system, gastrointestinal system and central nervous system and vehemently warned against it. These warnings continue to be largely ignored.

The presence of illicit brews has also been detrimental to Kenya’s economic well-being.

In a meeting between the National Assembly Public Petitions Committee and Alcoholic Beverages Association of Kenya (ABAK), Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM) and the Anti-Counterfeit Authority (ACA), Members of Parliament heard that illicit brews now account for up to 6 per cent of Kenya’s total alcohol market.

Counterfeit goods

Consequently, the country is losing an estimated Sh120 billion annually in tax revenue through the illicit alcohol trade.

For years, questions have been raised about the porous nature of Kenya’s borders, which continue to allow the entry of counterfeit goods that flood the market. Being cheaper, these products undercut legitimate businesses and, in some cases, pose serious health risks.

Concerns have also been raised about the capacity and willingness of authorities to effectively monitor and remove substandard locally manufactured goods from circulation. However, these efforts are often undermined by corruption, limiting their effectiveness.

As alcohol continues to disrupt families and communities, the Anti-Counterfeit Authority (ADAK) reports that in 2024, there were 3.6 litres of adulterated alcohol per adult compared to 2.5 litres of regulated alcohol.

Amid these challenges, the National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (NACADA) continues to run sensitisation campaigns, though for many people these are often seen as routine exercises with limited impact.

As the country grapples with the broader menace of illicit brews and alcoholism, concern remains particularly high for Central Kenya, which is seen as sinking deeper into the crisis. This has been attributed to a lenient approach towards manufacturers and sellers of toxic alcohol, as well as rising youth unemployment.

For some, like Gachagua, the proliferation of illicit alcohol here is a deliberate move to condemn an otherwise economically potent region, strategically planned to rob the youth of their future and, therefore, ensure Central Kenya is suppressed for good.

According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics’ Overall Poverty Estimates of 2024, Central Kenya’s counties have some of the lowest poverty levels, with Kiambu only second to Nairobi, and with Kirinyaga third. They also ranked fairly well in the five-year average county share of gross domestic product (2019-2023), with Kiambu second to Nairobi, yet again.

For many, it is hard to see how the region can unshackle itself from this burden of alcoholism, and what it could achieve were that to happen.