UPDATE: 11:00 PM

Rumours going round are to the effect that Raila Odinga and William Ruto have been arrested, and William Ruto has been shot. Reportedly this is after ODM announced their intentions to name a parallel government, a move, I must confess, is not entirely wise given the current situation.

More as I get it.

I have just been watching President Kibaki been sworn in, amid applause from his cabal of powerful friends and cronies. As far as I can tell it seems to have been a private ceremony for himself and his friends.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the fact that Kibaki’s friends and minions were already gathered and ready for swearing in minutes after the announcement was made.

People awaiting news

I refuse to call him and his ilk honourable. They are no such thing.

While he and his friends are sipping tea and eating crumpets in statehouse I find myself at crossroads.

I question the very beliefs I once held true — that democracy at the end of the day triumphs.

I feel outraged that Mwai Kibaki can with a straight face tell me how he feels “humbled that the people have elected him” and how he urges his opponents to “respect the electoral process”.

People reacting to the news

I feel mad that Samuel Kivuitu is cracking jokes at State House while my country falls apart because of him and his puppeteers.

I feel that the people of Kenya have been completely robbed of everything they have gained over the last 40 years. We lacked few things but at least we were generally a fair people.

I feel that the change we thought we had in 2005 was just an illusion.

I feel that all the time (3+ years), love, devotion and attention I dedicated on Mzalendo.com, sleepless nights sacrificed, hours of my time and resources have been pissed away in just a few days.

I feel that Kenyans have been robbed of something that can never be valued — their electoral process.

I feel challenged even now to respond to the question I had been asked earlier in the day — “Is there any point voting?”

Fracas begins to develop in my backyard

I feel cheated because the same cabal that has been in power since independence is still in power.

I feel cheated that an administration rejected by the ballot can somehow find itself into the presidency.

I feel sad that Kenyans optimistically queued on the 27th thinking they could control their destiny and the very people they entrusted spat on their good faith and goodwill.

I feel angry that my house has just been stoned.

I feel angry that my friends’ shops have been looted and burnt.

Shops Looted and burnt. FYI the burning kiosk is the left most blue one in the first photo

I feel shocked that on comparing Kibaki to Moi, Moi comes out on top because he actually walked away when he lost.

I feel amazed that the ruling party in no way shape or form is representative of the country.

I feel insulted that people can rig the elections and believe that we are dumb enough not to see through it.

I cry (literally) at realizing that we have been robbed of our peaceful, friendly homeland, where our camaraderie made us famous worldwide by power hungry power barons.

As I sit here in my room sick to my stomach and hear the breaking glass outside my house and see my friends watch helplessly as their shops are looted and burnt I again ask myself …

What have they done?

UPDATE

The Government has just issued a directive via the Ministry of Information & Communication banning all live broadcasts, or broadcasts of anything “inciting”, presumably the reaction to the ECK announcement.

Try harder. You can’t silence the truth.

It’s official. ECK has just declared Mwai Kibaki winner.

Despite

• PNU only securing about 40 seats out of 210
• Extremely suspicious activities revolving around presidential and parliamentary results
• A confession from a commissioner of inflation
• A confession from an aspirant of vote stuffing
• Televised footage of vote stuffing

The ECK chairman claimed that it had no jusisdiction to act on the issues raised  by the ODM to do with irregularities in some 48 odd results.

I find this difficult to buy.

Quote of the day, from a thoughtful passerby

So what was the point in voting?

I no longer feel able to respond.

Meanwhile there is unrest in South B and Eastlands.

The much awaited announcement from ECK chairman Samuel Kivuitu never was. He had began by reading results by Molo when the ODM loudly challenged the results.

Things speedily ground to a halt.

Shortly after aspirant Raila Odinga held a press conference where he bemoaned the doctoring of the results, which was confirmed by William Ruto who tabled a copy of the Form 16A where the total votes for Kibaki were at odds with those that were announced.

Then came the shocker.

An ECK commissioner stepped up and confessed that there had been doctoring of results at the ECK, specifically during the generation of the sheets that were used to read the results. According to him numbers favouring Kibaki were inflated in his favour. He said he was in Team 2 in charge of Coast and Upper Eastern and he confessed after doctoring 3 constituencies he could no longer stomach what was being done.

We’re not done.

Juja aspirant William Kabogo also appeared on TV and complained about the rigging of the Juja vote in favour of the PNU candidate, George Thuo. He claims there is significant deviation between the parliamentary votes and presidential votes.

What. The. Fuzz?

If this is a fact, then to tell the truth I am stunned. I cannot believe that people are naive enough to think that Kenyans are foolish enough to buy this sort of thing. This is 2007 for God’s sake! Do people still think that this sort of thing works?

I am very angry that a mockery has been made of Kenyans and the electoral process. Kenyans sacrificed on the 27th to vote and now some bigwigs are conspiring to silence the voice of the people. I am very bitter and very angry that the electoral process seems to have been stolen from Kenyans.

I remember laughing when watching Mwai Kibaki attending that KANU National Delegates conference and finger in the air singing “KANU yajenga nchi“.

I’m not laughing so hard now. Does anyone recall the last paragraphs of Animal Farm?

We can forgive buffoonery, ineptitude and passivity. We will not forgive our voices being silenced. Will post when I learn anything new

WHAT HAVE YOU PEOPLE DONE?

Pray for this country. I’m getting the sinking feeling in my stomach that some greedy people are on the verge of irreversibly ruining this country

Right, today has been an especially tense day. Very very tense.

There has been pockets of unrest all around the county, especially in Kisumu, Kericho, Mombasa and parts of Nairobi.

The media is reporting the unrest is due to the delay in the results.

They are half right.

Here’s the problem.

For some reason, some constituencies have only had their parliamentary results released, and mysteriously not the presidential results. By accident or design, most of these seem to fall in the strongholds of the PNU, Central and Eastern provinces.

A good number are DEEPLY suspicious that the reason of the delay is for the numbers to be adjusted in favour of the incumbent, who has within 24 hours managed to close a gap of 900,000 to about 40,000. Opinion is that the government is bent on rigging the elections.

The Electoral Commission is making claims to the effect that they are unable to reach some of their returning officers.

Personally I too am very skeptical of the developments

• What good reason can there be for parliamentary results to be released without presidential
• How is it that results from far removed constituencies in Rift Valley, Nyanza and Coast have arrived and yet neighboring constituency results are not?
• How can the 45 odd seats gathered so far by the PNU and its affiliates translate into a presidential victory
• Some of the turnouts in some constituencies that are PNU strongholds are suspiciously high. 90%+ turnouts are hard enough to swallow but situations where the votes cast are greater than the number of registered voters? Hmm
• There was footage on KTN earlier in the day of very suspicious activities that seemed to benefit the candidate of particular party in Kamukunji
• I just don’t buy absurdities that the ECK cannot reach 51 agents because their phones were off / it was raining

The feeling is that the elections are being stolen from under our very noses.

I for one am waiting keenly to get hold of the complete statistics so I can work out for myself some of those numbers. I am in possession of voter numbers per constituency and I will be very keen indeed to see if they tally with what will be announced.

The contrast between today and the 27th cannot possibly be greater.

More as it develops.

AOB

What is the sense on grown folks reading elections results to us like children? Why can;t the ECK have some sort of projector and screen and use those to display results? The current way wastes EVERYBODY’s time, including the ECK’s

Finally we are at that time where every 5 years we brave hot sun, wet rain and long queues to voice our desires with regards to precisely who we want to lead us.

Yes sir, elections 2007 are with us.

I’ve been driving around Nairobi this afternoon to get a feel of what’s on the ground. I’ve also discovered that while I have no trouble watching 4 TV channels at the same time while listening to 3 other radio channels, most people find this acutely irritating.

Sorry.

I may have forgotten to carry my camera to capture the scenes, but there’s nothing wrong with my eyes and ears. Here is some of the interesting things I came across

• Some people woke up between 3 and 4 and were at the polling stations from 4 AM in the morning to vote
• If you’re thinking of heading to the ECK command center and waiting sweatily at ECK Chairman Kivuitu’s elbow for the results to be announced think again my child. No doubt remembering the events of 2002 the ECK has made sure that idlers and riffraff do not coalesce their shouting selves around the officials. Most roads leading to the KICC have been cordoned off and some very grim faced security personnel that appear to be either Administration police or General Service Unit. I found myself apologizing from a sharp look from one of those gentlemen.
• Some bars refused to serve customers who do not have the magical inked finger to indicate voting
• Some matatus refused to carry people that did not have the magical inked finger
• In Kibera things almost became sticky when it was discovered that Raila Odinga was not on the voter’s roll. Neither were people whose names started with O and A. Naturally this caused some acute consternation. The ECK explained that the lists had been split along alphabetic lines to reduce the numbers on the lines, and some lists were not delivered in time.  Mercifully updated lists were updated and voting took place. I for one am very grateful that people kept their cool. Considering that in some communities names beginning with A and O are fairly thick on the ground, it could have been interpreted quite differently with very nasty results.
• Lines in Kibera were up to 2Km long. Yes, that’s kilometers.
• Nairobi polling stations are heavily populated by party agents that are reducing the speed of counting the ballots to a crawl
• Anticipating long nights, some ECK officials are making use of lulls in the voting to catch 40 winks on benches and on the grass.
• It was refreshing to see young aspiring leaders like Jonathan Mueke and John Kiarie showing up to vote. John Kiarie actually came with his wife and baby
• The Uchumi in South B was closed. (4 litres of soda don’t last as long as you’d think!)
• The voting queue at the Catholic Parochial polling station had to be seen to believed. It was even longer than the Kibera ones! Looping and winding on itself like that annoying snake game on Nokia phones
• There is talk that turnout could top 80% this election, which is a big increase from the last election where it was about 55%
• Preliminary coverage is inconsistent across stations. KTN is showing Odinga is ahead and Citizen and Nation are showing Kibaki is ahead (as of 11 PM)
• Some of the preliminary results are verging on the absurd. 99% for a candidate?

More as it develops

This morning as I was driving from a week-long conference I cast a jaundiced eye at the fare that was coming through Roberta’s speakers. Absolutely inane best describes some of the fare coming courtesy of our radio stations.

The first gentleman pleaded thus:

“Row the boat,
row the boat,
row the boat,
row the boat.

Signal the plane,
signal the plane,
signal the plane,
signal the plane …”

He was followed in quick succession by another one telling me

“Big sh*t poppin,
and little sh*t stoppin,
big sh*t poppin,
and little sh*t stoppin,
big sh*t poppin,
and little sh*t stoppin  …”

There was barely time for the radio to cool before there was another one

“Stuntin’ like my daddy,
stuntin’ like my daddy,
stuntin’ like my daddy,
stuntin’ like my daddy … “

Followed in quick succession by this gent

“Snap ya fingers! Do ya step!
You can do it all by yo self!
Let me see you do it! Ay!
Let me see you do it! Ay! … “

Wasting no time another son of his father stepped up

“I make it rain,
I make it rain on them …
I make it rain”

The lady who took to the stage next clearly objected to her predecessor making it rain

Now that it’s raining more than ever
Know that we still have each other
You can stand under my Umbrella
You can stand under my Umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)
Under my umbrella
(ella ella eh eh eh)
Under my umbrella
(ella ella eh eh eh)
Under my umbrella
(ella ella eh eh eh eh eh eh)

As I chuckled to myself I remember thinking back some dozen or so (give or take) years ago when I was an unwilling and annoyed passenger in a Peugeot 504 en route to the grandparent’s, squirming at the torture of the “ancient and archaic” music my folks forced us to endure by playing the tapes in the car radio. Mbilia Bel and San Fan Tomas made  me want to weep. Billy Joel, Eugene Wilde, Lionel Richie and James Brown were relics of yesteryear with tired, mundane and boring music.

I remember after a particularly bitter and eloquent appeal for something more up to date my folks gave me the old one two.

Mater: You know, when you grow older is when you’ll realize the value of this music, the instrumentation and the lyrics. Some of those things you listen to today …
Pater: Why am I arguing with a boy who thinks that limping like he has a jigger in one foot is “cool”?

{Note: My father, somehow can put quotes into his speech}

Well my wonderful parents, you were right. I’m not exactly sure when I crossed that bridge between youth and ” when you’re older”, but cross it I have.

Especially today, where x years ago (and x is an increasingly large number), unto us a child was born.

Special thanks to those who stayed up till midnight, promptly fell asleep and woke up later in a panic to wish me a happy birthday :) This means YOU.

Thanks to those who have sent me best wishes. (Sam, Njeri, Joze and others I’m too tired to type :) )

Thanks to my lads and lasses at work who dragged me from a conference in the middle of nowhere to present me with large quantities of delicious cake. I was profoundly touched.

And most thanks to my folks. Reviewing what I’ve accomplished so far, especially in the last couple of years … you’ve done something right.

PIC OF THE DAY

  ”

Batman … You’re my lad and all but dude — Robin?!! (Pic from http://www.superdickery.com)

Andrea Bocelli – Time To Say Goodbye