Kenyan Presidential elections 2017
Nigeria was blessed to have Professor Attahiru Jega as electoral commissioner - neutral and strong - otherwise - and this is common knowledge, that as has often happened in some unsettled, crazy African democracies , by hook and by crook, the incumbent would have won. In Sierra Leone it was Dr. Christiana Thorpe and in Kenya it could have been Roselyn Akombe of Kenya's IEBC but she has fled for her life - to the United States of America.
Just listening to Martin Ngatia saying that the situation in Kenya is volatile is putting it lightly and it's not only ethnic passions that are running high and already boiling over.
It's a pity that Ngugi Wa Thiong'o was not awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature this year, in which case he would have been the foremost one currently being consulted as prophet, oracle and commentator on what the hell is going on in Kenya right now.
I mention Wa Thiong'o as author and ideologue, because Kisumu has always been central to some of his political pronouncements and in today's Kenya, Kisumu that distinguished centre of the old Mau Mau insurgency is still symbolically one of the significant centres of the storm, other centres being the overpopulated Kibera slum in Nairobi , the recent pre and post election burning down of Nairobi's Gikomba Market and more importantly the main centres of demonstrations and demonstrators in the heavily populated political bases showing overwhelming support for Raila Odinga, these past few weeks being heavily put down by Kenya's genocidal paramilitary police and Uhuru Kenyatta's Kenyan military.
The Luo are said to be the intellectuals and the Kikuyu are said to be of a more entrepreneurial spirit. In Shiva Naipaul's " North of South" one of the characters he meets expresses one of the age old prejudices tenaciously held , apparently, not only by the Luo, that "They will sell their grandmothers to you if you give them a chance."
The Kenyan presidential elections held in August this year having been declared "invalid, null and void" by the Kenyan judiciary, in round two of this traditional rivalry, again, most of all between the Kikuyu and the Luo now locked in battle after another disputed presidential election - tomorrow - to be followed by a disputed presidential re-run with the current generation of the Odinga dynasty (said to be the good guys) pitted against their arch rivals/ arch enemies the ruling Kenyatta dynasty (said to be atrociously corrupt elite), it's a tragedy in the making with an outcome which all can see clearly.
Tomorrow's disastrous Kenyan elections and the aftermath of violence will be keenly observed by Kenya's neighbours and the rest of the world and that includes the African Union, who up till today can't - are not in a position – or won't – are not willing to do anything about it.
Tentatively, a postponement of the elections until things are sorted out- in the name of reason and fair play and levelling the field a little , would have been an ideal solution to this now desperate, emergency situation that has at last arrived with the 26th of October being a sad day to remember in Kenya's political history
After the Kenyan judiciary declared the last Kenyan Presidential election null and void - and recommended that some reforms should be made in the electoral process and – despite objections by Raila Odinga's opposition party about the same old corrupt faces in the electoral Commission once again set to conduct the Kenyan Presidential re- election
I asked Ben ( a retired Tanzanian politician) what's this about Odinga declaring himself a non-combatant in the re run - it means that it will be a one horse race with Uhuru as the only winner . Ben replied that if Odinga withdraws his candidacy , then all his supporters will vote for the other opposition candidate.
The problem is that at this point I'm sure that most of us don't even know the name of the other candidate , apart from Uhuru - who is therefore going to be declared the winner , after which all hell is going to break loose and of course it will be a " state of emergency"
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