I Choose To Waste My Vote, But Not My Beloved Country.

This is my message to all my fellow Kenyans.

For many years, our country has been run under the unspoken doctrine of "Punda Afe, Mzigo Ufike"; punda being the citizen while mzigo stands for the loot made by greedy politicians in power and their allies. Currently, we the citizens are stuck with the notion of "Kuchagua Mgeni ni Kuharibu Kura". But we'll get to that after examining my story about the recent history of Kenyan presidential politics as narrated herein-below.

In the year 1997, I was a young Meru boy thriving in our little village of Muguru in South Imenti Constituency when I received my first and only election related incentive (BRIBE). The money came from one Eliphas Riungu who was then an M.P aspirant for South Imenti.

The young children were divided into several groups of 25 kids each and given Kshs.500/= to share amongst themselves. I used my 20 shillings therefrom to buy a full 500 gram loaf of bread and kept the change to play a then popular game of tossing coins into a hole, locally referred to as "Koyo". Those memories have lasted. The media later linked that "incentive" to the Goldenberg Scandal.

Eliphas Riungu lost the South Imenti Constituency Contest to Kiraitu Murungi while Mwai Kibaki who was my preferred presidential candidate lost to the incumbent president Moi. Madam Charity Ngilu was at an impressive FIFTH position behind of Raila & Kijana Wamalwa. It must have been the first time a woman vied for the presidency of this country if I am not wrong. Please note that Mr. Kenneth Matiba who almost toppled Moi in the 1992 elections came a distant 6th.

In the year 2002, we witnessed what remains the most memorable action by Kenyan politicians since independence. All relevant opposition candidates sacrificed their selfish ambitions and threw their weight behind a single candidate in a bid to oust the then unbearable rule of President Moi's party K.A.N.U.

The then puppet presidential candidate, Mr. Uhuru Kenyatta, whose only political experience was having been nominated as a Member of Parliament by Moi, was heavily defeated by the Rainbow Coalition Candidate, Mwai Kibaki, who garnered twice as many votes as Uhuru. Without the selfless act of the politicians, he'd have won with ease. This will probably go down as the only time in Kenya's history when voters did something meaningful with their votes. I like to remeber it as the time when a Kikuyu man on a wheel chair relied upon a Luo song ("Unbwogable by Gidi Gidi & Maji Maji"), a gospel song ("Yote yawezekana, bila Moi by all Kenyans lol") and a Luhya parody tune (by Mukhisa Kituyi) combined with the support of Kenyan politicians and citizens from all corners of our great nation to win an election, FAIR & SQUARE. 

The first three months of the Coalition government were like an exert from a fairy tale. Unbelievable change was witnessed. Corruption literally disappeared from the public eye. We had genuine belief in the government. Police officers stopped soliciting bribes from the masses. Power seemed to have been conferred upon its real bearers, THE PEOPLE. I remember a case in Meru where a couple of police officers ran for their lives as one of them was caught soliciting for a bride at a roadblock along the Meru - Embu highway.

Free primary school education was implemented by this government. The late John Michuki revolutionized and streamlined the matatu industry. Most of the good roads we have in this country today were either constructed or reconstructed by this government. We had seen the light...Unfortunately, GREED RUINED IT ALL.

Despite the great work being done by the coalition government, a team of the coalition leaders led by Raila Odinga felt that the power sharing MoU wasn't honoured satisfactorily by the then President Kibaki. They launched an offensive against his leadership which culminated into the 2005 YES(banana) vs NO (orange) referendum where NO(orange) won by almost 57% against YES(banana)'s 43%. I has just cleared high school. Was still 17 years old with a daughter on the way. It was a bogus draft constitution but I wish they voted YES.

Orange won. And by won, I mean, said Kenyans were convinced to say NO to a new constitution and to divide the country along tribal lines once again. Kenya was officially screwed. The momentum of developments started decreasing. The country went down a path of tribal hatred and tension which I still blame the 2008 post election violence on. I voted Nick for Councilor, Kiraitu for MP and Mwai Kibaki for president in the December, 2007 elections. 

Many people voted. There were numerous allegations of vote rigging which were mishandled. I remember being at the Nkubu Catholic Church compound playing volleyball with the church youth team when Kibaki was Declared winner. We celebrated. It felt good to win my first elections. I even made it home on time to catch the rather rushed swearing in ceremony. All seemed perfect. And then the news of the violence started streaming in.

About this tribalism menace, why do we fall for it? Did you know that during the post election violence, murderers would ask their victims to produce their National IDs or initiate conversations in their own tongues in a bid to ascertain whether or not they were qualified to be murdered? Did you know that in the absence of speech and national ID cards it would be extremely difficult to segregate a majority of people along tribal lines unless you knew them in advance? Why do we keep on spreading this hate against people we don’t know and who have not wronged us?

Anyway, we've all heard the stories. I have spent a lot of time going through the videos, pictures and publications. I remember seeing a presidential candidate claiming on NTV that they were going to make the country ungovernable. I remember Robert Nagila, a then prominent journalist ranting live on air in what I still believe was a punishable case of PEV incitement. We ignored all that. People died, lives were changed for the worst forever, we were given a list of six suspects popularly referred to as the Ocampo six with KEY NAMES NOTABLY ABSENT which I no longer care about, the government fell into a shady power sharing setup and we kissed the good old days goodbye.

We learnt one lesson about power sharing in Kenya between a president and a prime minister. I guess that’s why the 2010 Constitution which by the way has been screwing us as Kenyan tax payers from all directions was keen to leave out the prime minister’s slot. We’ll dwell on this issue later.

Fast forward to 2012. The mistakes of 2008 came to bite us. Our country’s guilt for its participation and subsequent mishandling of the post election violence led to political unity between the two major combatant tribes, the Kikuyu and the Kalenjin communities. Reconciliation was mandatory to save the future of the country so they didn’t really have a choice at this point.

I voted against Raila Odinga clearly because I wasn’t happy with his political impact on this country. As seen hereinabove, I blamed him for ruining the country with his self centered agendas. I queued for long hours at the Rongai open air market voting centre with my three brothers (from other mothers) and voted for the 2002 puppet with his fellow potential inmate. It was a mistake. We turned a blind eye to all other potential presidents because choosing them was considered a waste of votes.  The combination of the UhuRuto team with the new county government leadership system is by far the worst thing that struck this nation since the British colonial governance.

The effects of the activities of the current breed of leaders within the central government, the opposition and the counties are sickening. We will pay the price of letting them be there for years. No one else can intervene to clean up this mess. They politicize everything in a bid to remain relevant. It’s no longer about the country and its citizen. Everything is about them. Well, and a few of their own…

Terrorism found a way of creeping into the country starting with an unconfirmed report of a grenade hauling by an unknown assailant at a downtown pub in the city of Nairobi (Mwaura’s?) that injured a few revelers, to the massacre of  at least 147 university students at Garissa in the North Eastern province. How did we get here? Were we lured into invading Somalia? Were those initial grenade tossing incidents genuine external terrorist attacks? How do we deal with what has become of this unwanted war? Who is going to resolve this issue for Kenyans?

The economy is bad. I don’t know how to blame them anymore. I remember being alive when a 500gram loaf of  bread cost 5 shillings. Now a 400g loaf goes for at least Kshs.50. During the 90s, twenty shillings was commonly referred to as “pound”, because it was once the equivalent of the British Pound Sterling which has since hit highs of over Kshs. 140. Land grabbing has boosted the real estate market with prices thereof soaring higher that a pedophile’s appetite for underage girls.  Our children will never know how big a deal it was to buy candy or fruits worth 5 cents a piece. They will never understand how none of the rich people we knew were millionaires. Or about a time when a Kenyan earning a salary of Kshs.5,000 was  enable to buy and develop a piece of land upcountry. I have lived through all this and I am just 28 years old.

It’s a pity that we know the people who are willing to send the country to the pigs for personal gains yet we are unwilling to do whatever it takes to change that; to know that their self centered, power hungry, influence peddling, corruption based agendas have already brought our country to its knees; to hear rumors of how most of what’s relevant about this country has already been auctioned off to the highest bidders. But what can we do about all this? Are the changes we need realizable? Were the months of January to March 2003 just an illusion? How do we get the change we’ve always wanted?

I don’t have all the answers. But I know for sure that we need to choose between wasting a vote vis-a-vis wasting our beloved nation, five years at a time. Let us choose to waste our votes on the unpopular but promising leaders who have genuine intentions for this country. Let us vote in the donkeys with complete disregard to the useless horses in these races. Hatuwezi kosa punda mzuri. Please unite against your problems as your fellow Kenyans did in the year 2002. Don’t delegate your power to politicians from now onwards. Let us not wait for vision 2030. CHUKUA CONTROL YA NCHI YAKO KUTOKA LEO! BADILISHA!