Wanjiku is dead but who will mourn her when everyone wants to move on?

 SHARE BOOKMARKPRINTRATING

Rasna Warah 

By RASNA WARAH
Posted  Sunday, March 31   2013 at  17:37

IN SUMMARY

• Wanjiku lost by a one per cent margin. She demanded a re-count. They told her not to be silly, to think about the interests of the village, to stop disturbing the peace.

SHARE THIS STORY

  

1
inShare

Wanjiku died last week. There was no state funeral, no wreaths, no eulogies.

She was buried in a quiet ceremony in her small plot of land.

They say she died of a broken heart. A note was found next to her body. It read: “I am tired.”

When the villagers learnt of her passing, they shrugged and said: “That is life. We need to move on. We can’t mourn that which was never ours.”

You see, Wanjiku didn’t play by the rules of the village. As a young girl she had been branded a witch by the village chief. For several years, she was shunned and ridiculed as a stupid woman with strange ideas in her head.

One time she was stripped naked and made to walk to the chief’s house where she had to kneel down and apologise. She was whipped 10 times. The scars from her wounds, like her humiliation, never quite healed.

Wanjiku’s crime was that she dared to ask the chief why he ate plump chickens every day while the villagers starved.

She rocked the boat too much. Like the time when she dared to speak on behalf of the villagers when the government official came on what they said was “a fact-finding mission”.

The chief was not amused. He told her that as a woman she should know her place. She should learn to shut up. Without peace there can be no development. She was disturbing the peace.

The rains failed the following year. Many villagers died of starvation. Wanjiku orchestrated a revolt against the chief. Villagers burned down his house, and stole all his chickens. They demanded change.

A new chief was installed. He promised to end corruption. Women, the vulnerable and the sick rejoiced. Wanjiku was appointed deputy chief.

She created a people’s court where everyone could speak and air their grievances.

People from neighbouring villages and around the world marvelled at the new democratic structures in Wanjiku’s village. Her village came to be known as the “Wanjiku Model”, and even won a United Nations award.

But as the years passed, Wanjiku realised that the new chief had no intention of bringing about real change in the village.

He had filled his Cabinet with cronies of the old chief.

The villagers were still poor. Chinese contractors had built a road leading to the major town, and there was a new borehole in the school compound. But Wanjiku was not satisfied.

Too many people in the village were still starving, even when there was a bumper harvest. She knew the chief’s cronies were siphoning off bags of maize from the village granary and selling them to neighbouring villages.

She wanted the chief’s cronies removed. The chief would hear none of it. He banished her from his court.

The villagers were divided. Some felt that Wanjuku was being too hasty, too impatient, too ambitious. They claimed she was working on behalf of foreigners to destroy the village.

Rumours began circulating that her goal was to wrest power from the chief. Imagine that. A chief who is a woman? How can that be? They said a curse would befall the village if she became chief. They began plotting her assassination.

Meanwhile, Wanjiku’s growing group of supporters planned a counter-attack. They formed a “chama” and appointed her as their leader.

They argued that no chief in the village could be appointed without the backing of at least half of all the adult villagers. Vote counters were appointed and an election by secret ballot was held. Villagers stood for hours to cast their vote.

Wanjiku lost by a one per cent margin. She demanded a re-count. They told her not to be silly, to think about the interests of the village, to stop disturbing the peace.

Who cares who is chief anyway? they argued. We are a model village, remember? We now have institutions in place that will check the excesses of the chief. There will be no re-count. The village and the villagers need to move on.

That is life.

That night Wanjiku lay in bed, caressing the scars that had formed when she had used thorns to hold her flesh together.

Then her 50-year-old heart stopped. Just like that.

rasna.warah@gmail.com

Writer got it wrong on Raila

By Joe Ombuor
Nguli’s vapid argument that Prime Minister Raila Odinga shot useful passengers in his ODM vessel en route to the Supreme Court assisted defeat by Jubilee is not propped by any logic.
He cites Wiliam Ruto among the useful passengers Raila shot, yet it is in common knowledge that Ruto was the first project identified to stop the PM’s march to State House, soon after the bungled 2007 elections won resoundingly by Raila but shamelessly handed to Kibaki amid unprecedented bloodshed.

Ruto did not disappoint. Disgruntled and bitter that he was not rewarded adequately for leading his Kalenjin herd almost en masse to ODM, he played ball and made maximum use of weapons put at his disposal to bring down his party leader. The Mau Forest issue that Raila was tricked to champion was among these weapons. He even raised funds in the guise of benefitting the victims, funds whose fate remains mysterious to this day.
Nguli is quiet about other passengers he claims Raila shot in his titanic ODM. But it is not difficult for a keen reader to pick the likes of Musalia Mudavadi, Najib Balala and Charity Ngilu, all whom jumped out of Raila’s ship citing various reasons. The truth of the matter is that they were pulled out by Raila’s nemesis (read the powers that be) with oodles of money to ensure the PM’s vessel was not heavy enough to stand the tempests blowing it off the course of State House. While Balala and Ngilu did not succeed well enough in dividing the votes of their communities against ODM and Raila as intended, Mudavadi did, all along posing to be contesting the presidency. Eugene Wamalwa was conscripted to assist him. Mudavadi remains the most useful ‘project’ after Ruto for Jubilee’s “victory”.
It is not true, as Nguli argues that Raila wanted to be president against all odds without considering his friends. The truth of the matter is that Ruto ceased to be his friend long ago for purely selfish reasons while Mudavadi, Balala, Ngilu and even Joe Nyagah whom he salvaged from political demise to become a minister followed suit. Mudavadi too was pulled by Raila from political hole after he was dumped following his political debacle in the run up to 2002 elections.
My advise to Nguli and those of his ilk is that it is foolhardy to discredit a leader for choosing to put the country first. That is what Raila did in 2008 and has repeated in 2013 after realizing the political playing field is tilted against him by the powers that be. Raila remains a great leader in spite of what his detractors may say. Such leaders come once in decades.
Evidence was adduced in court that Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) was deeply steeped in irregularities during which some of Raila’s votes were shifted to bolster a shaky Uhuru. The Supreme Court’s game was such that Kenyans might never know the truth, just as was the case in 2007.The court disallowed evidence. Did Nguli and those who think like him not see that?
What happened in a brief space of five minutes at 5pm on March 30 2013 was, contrary to Nguli’s belief, a clever formula for the country to move on without free, fair and democratic elections into which colossal tax payers’ money had been pumped.

Celebrating Kenyatta's Victory

Security scare after bomb found in Kariobangi

Nipashe 31st March

Uhuru: Let's move forward elections are over

Police reassure Kisumu residents of security

  SHARE BOOKMARKPRINTRATING

Residents protest in Kisumu town after the Supreme Court ruling that declared Uhuru Kenyatta Kenya's president on March 30, 2013. Photo/JACOB OWITI  NATION MEDIA GROUP

By LILIAN OCHIENG and MOSES ODHIAMBO
Posted  Sunday, March 31   2013 at  12:24

SHARE THIS STORY

  

0
inShare

Police have reassured Kisumu residents of adequate security after Saturday protests over the Supreme Court ruling upholding the election of Uhuru Kenyatta as president.

Nyanza Police boss Joseph Ole Tito also confirmed that two people died as a result of the protests while 24 were seriously injured.

“The situation is generally calm after police contained the mayhem that erupted on Saturday evening,” he said.

Red Cross Western Region manager Mr Emmanuel Owako said the injured were rushed to Jaramogi Oginga Memorial and Referral Hospital.

"Among the injured is a child who sustained a bullet wound. Others sustained gunshot wounds in Homa Bay, Siaya and Kisumu riots," said Mr Owako.

Mr Tito also urged the Kisumu residents to be calm after Prime Minister Raila Odinga urged Kenyans to accept the verdict by the Supreme Court ruling, which ruled in favour of President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta.

“We have received positive responses from the people of Kisumu having adhered to the call for peace by the prime minister’s announcement on Saturday” he said.

“We must know that there are goons trying to take advantage of the confusion to rob from business premises. Police are on the ground and we hope that calm will be fully restored” he added.

Panic as bomb is found in a matatu in Nairobi

By Cyrus Ombati

Nairobi, Kenya: There was panic at a bus stop in Kariobangi when a bomb was found abandoned in a public service vehicle that had ferried passengers from the city centre.

The Improvised Explosive Device had been manufactured and was ready for detonation when the matatu crew discovered it on Sunday.

Police said they suspect the owners of the explosive had set it and alighted ready to detonate but it failed.

The conclusion was arrived at after they found 42 missed calls on a mobile phone that was found next to the bomb.

Bomb experts who arrived there said the bomb had the capacity of causing massive deaths and destruction of property.

The 25-sitter matatu, which plies Nairobi-Kariobangi route, had made several trips but the crew could not tell where the person who had the bag containing the explosive boarded.

Nairobi Area deputy head of police Moses Ombati said the IED resembles the ones that have been used in attacks in parts of Eastleigh, Nairobi.

“It could have caused deaths and destruction. It seems the owners tried to set it off in vain,” said Ombati.

Ombati said the matatu tout told them he noticed the bomb abandoned in the matatu after all passengers had alighted.

The bomb had been wrapped in a bag and when the tout, out of curiosity opened it he thought it was a laptop only to realise wires that led him to the bomb.

The police boss said the number of missed calls on the mobile phone demonstrated that the owners tried to set it off in vain.

Bomb experts from CID headquarters arrived at the scene and carried away the explosive saying they will detonate it later.

Last year on November 18, a similar matatu was targeted in a bomb explosion that killed ten passengers and injured several others.

The bomb was detonated from outside after the owners had abandoned it in the matatu and alighted.

Police have not solved the case. Eastleigh has been a target in the past years as up to ten explosions have occurred there in what police claim are attacks being staged by remnants of Al-Shabaab terror gang.

On Sunday, police urged matatu operators to intensify searches on passengers and their luggage as a way of deterring such attacks.

Mathare youths protest court ruling, destroy properties

SHARE BOOKMARKPRINTRATING

Mathare youth destroy properties as they loot in business premises on March 31, 2013 after protesting the ruling by Supreme Court that upheld the election of Uhuru Kenyatta as president. Photo/DENISH OCHIENG'  NATION MEDIA GROUP

By NATION REPORTER and AFP
Posted  Sunday, March 31   2013 at  12:05

SHARE THIS STORY

  

0
inShare

Several properties in Mathare North were on Sunday morning destroyed by rowdy youths who said they were unhappy with the Supreme Court ruling that upheld the election of Uhuru Kenyatta as Kenya's fourth president.

A storeyed building and several business premises were burnt as the youth engaged in looting.

Police arrived at the scene and managed to contain the situation.

"We want Uhuru to know that we are not happy with the court ruling," they said.

Cord's presidential candidate Raila Odinga had challenged the result of the March 4 poll hoping for a rerun but while he begrudgingly accepted the Supreme Court's decision on Saturday, youths in his strongholds were enraged.

Riots broke out immediately after the ruling, leaving two dead and seven wounded in the city of Kisumu, Joseph Ole Tito, police chief for the western Nyanza region, said.

Many shops remained boarded up Sunday, their owners fearing fresh looting. There were few cars on the roads with residents preferring to walk to church after several vehicles were damaged Saturday by stone-throwing youths.

"In Kisumu ... the situation has been contained and business is resuming to normal," Kenya's police chief David Kimaiyo told AFP.

"We have an adequate number of police officers in all parts of the country including in those troubled areas," he said.

The gunshots that had rung out sporadically for much of Saturday evening in Kisumu died down around midnight, residents said.

There were no reports of casualties in Nairobi where Odinga supporters had lit bonfires and tried to block roads in some slum areas on Saturday.

"There were confrontations in Kibera and Mathare but we were able to contain the situation and we have sent more officers there," Nairobi police chief Benson Kibui said.

The six judges of Kenya's top court dashed Odinga's last hopes of victory by unanimously ruling that the March 4 election had been fair and credible and that Kenyatta and his running mate had been "validly elected".

The ruling paves the way for Kenyatta, the son of Kenya's first president and one of Africa's richest men, to be sworn in as head of state on April 9.

Odinga, who argued that the ballot had been marred by widespread irregularities, said he accepted the court's ruling and wished his rival well.

"The court has now spoken," Odinga said, adding that while he might not agree with all its decisions his faith in the constitution "remains supreme".

The announcement of his defeat in the last elections in 2007, when he ran against the now outgoing president Mwai Kibaki, led to Kenya's worst violence since Independence, with more than 1,100 dead and several hundred thousand forced to flee their homes.

Kenyatta for his part thanked his rival and said the court ruling was "a victory for all the Kenyans" who turned out to vote on March 4.

The White House, Britain, France and the European Commission all congratulated Kenyatta on his victory.

Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto both face trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague for crimes against humanity over their alleged role in planning the 2007-2008 post-election violence.

Official results showed the president-elect won 50.07 percent of the votes -- just making it over the 50-percent threshold needed to avoid a second-round ballot by some 8,000 votes.

Kenyatta will become only the second sitting head of state, after Sudan's Omar al-Beshir, to face charges at the ICC.

Analysts have argued that, far from being a handicap, the international court case helped him by providing his camp with a victimisation narrative and keeping the campaign's focus away from his rivals.

What next for the man seen as an enigma of Kenyan politics

  SHARE BOOKMARKPRINTRATING

Prime Minister Raila Odinga (centre), his running mate Kalonzo Musyoka (left) and Cord member Moses Wetang’ula at a media conference at the PM’s office in Nairobi on Saturday. Mr Odinga lost a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the election of Mr Uhuru Kenyatta in the March 4 elections.  

By EMEKA-MAYAKA GEKARA gmayaka@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted  Saturday, March 30   2013 at  20:51

IN SUMMARY

• While a section of Kenyans see him as a champion of reforms and a force of good, others perceive him as a dictatorial, corrupt, opportunistic, anarchist, tribalist nepotist and a Western lackey keen to acquire power at any cost — a man with a great sense of self-entitlement.

SHARE THIS STORY

  

0
inShare

He has been described as the enigma of Kenyan politics, a cunning, scheming, restless and indomitable mobiliser and campaigner. But no single adjective can capture the character and temperament of Raila Amolo Odinga.

He has been Kenya’s most influential politician and has had tremendous influence on the country’s political discourse for more than a decade — but outside State House.
A scion of founding Vice-President Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Cord leader Raila Odinga has been the fulcrum around which Kenyan politics revolved after the exit of Daniel Moi in 2002.

No single politician has attracted more media headlines for the past 10 or so years than Mr Odinga. Barrels of ink have been used to write about the activities of a man who attracts admiration and resentment in equal measure.

With last evening’s Supreme Court decision upholding the election of Mr Uhuru Kenyatta as president, the major question is: What next for Mr Odinga?

He has a number of options. First, Mr Odinga, 68, could retire from politics and take up the roles of mentor and elder statesman or international assignments mediator.
He may also opt to stay on and strengthen his Orange party by providing guidance from outside Parliament or the Senate.

Yesterday he gave no hint as to his next move but said he would “soldier on to reform our institutions and politics”.
According to lawyer Charles Kanjama, Mr Odinga’s place in Kenyan politics cannot be ignored because he “remains the second-most popular politician in Kenya after President-elect Kenyatta” after winning 5.3 million votes.

Analyst Herbert Kerre of Kabianga University College says Mr Odinga will be useful in Africa and the world.

“He is an elder statesman who enjoys considerable admiration in Kenya and in the world for his strong ideals and consistency in the push for good governance in Africa,” he said.
“Raila is a strong Pan-Africanist whose politics resonate with Africans and Kenyans who wanted him to be president, but he should free himself for deployment at the continental level.”

Having unsuccessfully vied for the presidency three times, there is doubt whether he can summon sufficient energy and enthusiasm to make another stab at the job.
There have been suggestions that an ODM nominee to the National Assembly could be prevailed upon to step down for him.

While a section of Kenyans see him as a champion of reforms and a force of good, others perceive him as a dictatorial, corrupt, opportunistic, anarchist, tribalist nepotist and a Western lackey keen to acquire power at any cost — a man with a great sense of self-entitlement.

Opponents keen to project him as a destructive force point to his participation in a failed coup plot against the Moi regime. He has always argued it was an act of bravery to remove a despotic regime which had closed all avenues for democratic political competition and transfer of power.
Mr Odinga has achieved much in his political career, but the presidency has eluded him.

In past interviews and conversations, Mr Odinga has come out as a man who felt demonised despite what he considers his many sacrifices to expand liberties in Kenya.
He characterises his political journey as a duel with forces pushing for the status quo and says his major victory was the enactment of the 2010 Constitution.

The son of Jaramogi has a sure grasp of history, a rare attribute amongt most Kenyan politicos.
He reckons tribalism is a cancer that continues to destroy the fabric of nationhood, and he believes he has been a victim of tribalist, shadowy and vicious anti-reform figures who fought against the 2010 Constitution.

In a past conversation with this writer, Mr Odinga sounded pained by what he saw as an attempt by part of the political elite to deny his reform record.
During the presidential campaign he declared that the contest was between forces of impunity and those of change.

Reacting to a book critical of him by former advisor Miguna Miguna, Mr Odinga, who considers himself the “bearer of the reform dream,” said it was the work of the elite opposed to radical change.

“I have been associated with reforms and know that if you target me, then you will kill the reform dream.”
Mr Odinga summed up the strategy thus: “Hit at my character, pull me down and kill the reform dream.”

He said the forces behind Mr Miguna’s book were “the same people saying let us not look in the rearview mirror”.
“Because the rearview mirror shows the dark era of political assassination, repression, ethnic discrimination, Goldenberg, Nyayo House torture chambers, suppression of the media and assassination of JM Kariuki and Pio Gama Pinto.”

A battle-hardened soldier — and he has scars to show for it — Mr Odinga is credited with uprooting the Nyayo regime in 2002 when he dramatically walked out on President Moi and teamed up with Mr Mwai Kibaki, then of National Rainbow Alliance to emphatically defeat Kanu’s Uhuru Kenyatta.
An energetic mobiliser, Mr Odinga would in 2005 rally the country to reject a proposed constitution that saw him and others kicked out of government. This set the stage for the 2007 presidential election, whose results he disputed, when President Kibaki was declared the winner.
The result was post-election violence that only ended after former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan brokered a peace deal that saw him share power with President Kibaki in a forced marriage.

The 2010 Constitution is no doubt the biggest achievement of the Kibaki-Raila coalition. It was during this period that he fought probably some of the most challenging battles of his political career which not only saw him lose key allies but culminated in the alliance that fought him at the polls.

During his time as prime minister, Mr Odinga’s office was accused of involvement in a major maize scandal as well as loss of cash for the Kazi kwa Vijana project.

Differences with his then deputy in ODM, Mr William Ruto, over the handling of youth protesters in the 2007 violence and conservation of the Mau Forest antagonised the Kalenjin Rift Valley. The post-election violence also saw Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto charged with crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court, sowing the seed for the formation of a formidable alliance between the two and their communities which two years later transformed into the Jubilee coalition.

The two turned the election into a referendum on the ICC which their supporters packaged as working in favour of Mr Odinga. Mr Odinga’s support for the ICC was painted as a scheme to lock out Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto from the presidential race.

The 2013 presidential contest rekindled memories and a repeat of the rivalry between the families of founding President Jomo Kenyatta and first Vice-President Jaramogi Oginga Odinga.

Their fathers were entangled in vicious ideological fights that saw Mr Odinga sacked as vice-president, a move that divided the Kikuyu and Luo power elite that persists to date.