Close shave for naked night runners

By MAUREEN ODIWUOR

Two night runners were forced to abandon their mission in a cattle pen when a man and his son in a homestead at Dunga Beach in Kisumu County rudely interrupted their acrobatics.

The elderly man who busted them had woken up in the middle of the night to answer a call of nature.

Having lived in the same home almost his entire life, he needed no torch to locate the latrine about 50 metres from the house.

He, therefore, walked in the darkness, unaware that two men were ‘watching over his compound without pay’.

When he was in the pit latrine, a cow suddenly mowed. To his experienced ear, the sound seemed different, suggesting some form of distress.

Rustlers

Because the latrine was opposite the cow pen, he hid behind the door suspecting that cattle rustlers, who were unheard of in the area, had finally invaded his homestead.

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw dark shadows creeping about. His heart started beating wildly.

After watching them for some time, however, he came to the conclusion that the figures he saw couldn’t be thieves because they were traversing the cow pen while making funny movements. Maybe they were ghosts, he thought, and got more frightened.

But on a closer look, the ‘ghosts’ seemed to be quite jovial.

He noticed they were dancing while chanting in low tones — words that were not audible despite the silence of the night.

The old man gathered courage and crept to one of his son’s house where he whispered his name and told him to open the door gently.

Before the young man could ask what he wanted in the deep hours of the night, his father whispered that he could see strange figures hovering around the cattle pen.

His son crept back inside house and took his phone. Together, they tiptoed to the back of the house and the young man sent text messages to his brothers, who came out armed.

They surrounded the two men, only to realise they were night runners in their birthday suits. One escaped while his accomplice was nabbed.

Men from neighbouring homes, who heard the commotion, rushed to the scene where they joined forces and resolved to use the night runner as an example to other social misfits with similar behaviour.

Ridicule

The furious crowd then tied the naked man on a pole at the beach with the intention of letting him stay overnight. In the morning, he would face public ridicule till the authorities showed up.

According to Nyalenda Chief Otieno Kabisai, he received a call at dawn informing them that a man had been tied and if daybreak found him still there, the spectacle would grossly embarrass little children and women.

"But when I sent a team to the place, there was no one. People around the beach suspect that his accomplice might have untied him when the mob left," said Chief Kabisai.