The name Roysambu has frequently been on the lips of Kenyans with the estate trending for mostly the wrong reasons.
From murders and homicide cases to cyber-crime and kidnappings, the area will probably ring a bell to you for an infamous case in the past.
“Roysambu” dates back to the colonial era when the then British authorities in Kenya established an estate named the “Royal Suburbs”.
But local communities identified it as Roysambu which later came to be its permanent name.
Years later, Roysambu currently sits off the Thika Superhighway and serves as a center for various activities as well as a residential area.
It is located 11 kilometers from Nairobi CBD and known for its opulent lifestyle among the middle-income class of people living in the area, with a big percentage being a youthful population.
The Thika Road Mall – TRM has since given the estate a new face alongside several other high rise residential and commercial property.
Adjacent to the Mall is the TRM Drive which connects part of the estate to Thika Road.
Few meters from the TRM Drive is the Lumumba Drive, another important gateway to the popular estate.
The estate has experienced rapid growth with property developers flocking the area to tap into the high demand of housing.
Businesses give Roysambu a new life
Some of the key amenities surrounding the estate are institutions of higher learning including the Pan Africa Christian (PAC) University, CITAM Thika Road, TRM Mall, the Jesus Winner Ministries.
Owing to the amenities and its proximity to other key facilities, the estate has seen a surge in its population and consequently led to creation of opportunities.
On each side of the TRM Drive or Lumumba Drive are business and residential apartments forming an almost uniform skyline.
Businesses including fast food joints, shoes and clothes shops, barbershops and liquor stores have mushroomed on either side of the streets making it an important economic hub.
Activities here extend to late hours as businesses like liquor stores and night clubs operate until late hours into the night.
Unlike in several other estates, residents in the estate do not have a specific day set for partying. Everyday can be a partying day as long as you are well loaded.
I recently walked into the estate at 10pm and got surprised to find the streets were full of life with cabs taxing the TRM and Lumumba Drives with passengers alighting or boarding to various destinations.
The estate with a lively nightlife
Loud music and voices of levelers rent the estate late into the wee hours regardless of whether or not it is a weekday or not.
While on the streets, you will often see a group of animated youth holding house parties or partying on rooftops- painting a picture of the nature of relationships formed by the residents here.
At first you might wonder how these residents manage to spend time in nightclubs and still wake up for work the next morning.
But with a closer look into their lifestyle, you realize that people in the neighborhood have switched to remote jobs and online gigs, among other contemporary ways of working.
The number of foreigners including Nigerians, Rwandese nationals and Congolese has been on the rise with some taking up jobs such as barbershops.
Also Read: New Twist as CCTV Unmasks Main Suspect in Roysambu Murder
But all these factors have independently led to the current crime rate where cases of murders, suicide, kidnapping, laundry, and fraud have been reported.
With the lifestyle of people living in Roysambu and its neighborhood, some of the gigs pay handsomely and hence the opulence seen among the residents.
One of the concerns, however, has been lack of regulations on how the online jobs work.
This then creates room for fraud with miscreants targeting unsuspecting newbies to take away their hard-earned money.
The high prevalence of drug abuse has also been attributed to the crime rate.
From time to time, cases of mugging and robbery targeting motorists at night surge to further raise concerns about the safety in the neighborhood.
Recent crime cases in Roysambu
Consequently, Kasarani Police Station, located meters across the Superhighway has become a common subject in the news.
Also Read: Family of Rita Waeni Murdered in Roysambu Airbnb Speaks
Recent crime cases that caught nationwide attention from the area include the one of Rita Waeni, a university student whose dismembered body was found in an Airbnb on January 14, 2024.
In 2023, detectives had a hard time in trying to unravel the circumstances that led to the death a young man named Jeff Mwathi in the neighborhood.
Circumstances surrounding his death remain unclear to date, with different narratives including one stating that the victim was murdered and thrown off an apartment in the area surfacing.
