If you are a Nairobian, you certainly have come across the Flossin Mauwano Grafitti on nearly all buildings as well as major and minor highways.
I wonder what you thought of it. Or you probably dismissed it as just another group of young people testing the KENHA stern rules.
KENHA had said that those found defacing road infrastructure risk being fined Ksh85,000, and that included those printing graffiti.
The graffiti has finally made its way to the Ksh65 billion Nairobi Expressway. An act that stirred mixed emotions among netizens.
For instance, infamous blogger Robert Alai, who never lacks anything to say, tweeted that the guy behind the art should be arrested.
Flossin Mauwano should be arrested and charged for defacing our infrastructure. You can’t have people throwing gang signs around. Nairobi is not gangland
He wrote
Other netizens argued that it could be a bunch of an illegal group. But the truth was eventually known.
1997
In 1997, twenty-nine-year-old Stephen Mule alias Flossin Mauwano witnessed both his parents dying in a road accident along Langata highway.
“In 1997, I watched my parents get knocked down on the highway (along Langata Road) while escaping an irate crowd of youths following the election violence that had erupted. The vivid picture of their lifeless bodies has forever been embedded in my head since then,” he had told the Standard in a previous interview.
The artist divulged that he went through a very tough childhood under the care of his step mother.
“At the age of six, I was forced to do a lot of household chores. I used to spend the night in the cold after being locked out of the house,” he added.
In 2010 while in Form Three, his stepmother threw him and his pregnant girlfriend out of the house. He had impregnated their house help after falling in love. Mule was forced to rent a shanty within the slum.
“I had to adjust my schedule as a student by day, a father by night and a hawker during weekends,” he said.
Flossin Mauwano
Mule saw himself spend months in jail after confronting his stepmother who wanted his pregnant girlfriend to terminate the pregnancy. It was in jail that the name Flossin Mauwano came up.
Mule said that the name is extracted from his Kamba dialect to mean ‘The one who tells stories during sun set’. “That is why I am rarely seen, I work at night.” he added.
Mule, however, disclosed that he is not the one who does the graffiti. “Actually, I am not the one who does those artworks, it is my fans”.
It is noticeable that most of the signings are around blackspots. He said that it was This was something he took upon himself and never explained it to anyone. I mark the place and move on, he noted.
In 2011, when there was increased road accidents on Lang’ata road, together, they mounted a spirited road safety campaign on the road using a slogan to warn drivers of the dangers of over speeding.
And their rallying call was, ‘When you drive and see the slogan ‘Flossin Mawuano’, as a driver, you ought to exercise caution on the road’.
Mule said that his art never pays him cash but he is glad that it raises awareness. So now before you say that he needs to respect roads or be arrested, think about it.
By Wanjiru Mbaru
Way to shut Alai up!!!
Interesting