tHiNkEr’S rOoM

I have in the past expressed my concerns about the mainstream media, specifically the newspapers. When they are not sensationalizing trivial issues like what the Speaker’s Wife was wearing during a national crisis rather than focusing on real issues, many reporters betray a lethargy that verges on the comical.

Today for instance I have received a number of text messages informing me that I am in today’s standard. Many of them addressed me as Mwangi.

With some resignation I secured a Standard to find out what had been said about me and why I was being referred to as Mwangi.

Here’s the bit about me:

Mwangi of Thinker’s Room sympathized with “genuine” ODM supporters who seem to be watching their hero betray them”

The facts are as follows:
1) The Mwangi quoted there is not in fact myself. It is a comment that was left by a reader.
2) I am not, have not, and do not intend to be called Mwangi.
3) The reporter would do well next time to differentiate the sentiments of the blogger from those of the commenters. There is, you know, a difference. Now I am waiting for a deluge of threats and outrage from PNU yahoos who will finally feel that I have been exposed as an undercover ODM sympathizer (which I am not). I choose to attribute the failure to make the distinction (despite the fact that the quotes above and below mine were from the actual bloggers) to lethargy rather than a deliberate misstatement.

Inviting your rival for mediated talks on a possible coalition government on Friday and then even before putting the phone down proceeding to name your cabinet and the important portfolios on Tuesday.

Can someone check that the Presidential Garage is opened BEFORE the presidential limousine’s engine is started?

Or is Kibaki out of his DOGGONE MIND?!

How the FUZZ can this possibly help matters any?

This is tantamount to eating a man’s lunch, inviting him to dinner to appease him some and then proceeding to eat the dinner before he gets there!!!

One would think that a modicum of sense in the Kibaki administration would last longer than a Brazilian in a British tube station. How wrong one would be! I’d start making sanity comparisons to shithouse rats but the rats are objecting

Disturbing news from the Buru Buru area (thanks WathiiFM)

• Paramilitary men are camping right outside gates
• There is the modern equivalent of the Passover in operation. If your security lights are not on mobs will enter your house. Woe unto you if you and yours are there
• Mobs have been forcefully circumcising people. Latest counts indicate about 20 people have suffered that fate. (NB circumcision is generally not practiced by the Luo community)
• 5 people have bled to death after forceful circumcision

More news from the rest of Kenya

• More about the burnt church in Eldoret. There are conflicting stories as to the number of people that were inside. Numbers are ranging from 50 to 250
• Despite the government banning the rally on Thursday, the ODM insists it will go forward. I plan to be nowhere near Uhuru park. Mobs repulsed from rallies are generally not forgiving.
• There is looming fuel shortage in most petrol stations in Nairobi
• The unrest in Kenya is affecting Uganda as well. (Uganda, being landlocked, gets a lot of its supplies from Kenya). Fuel stations in Uganda are running out of fuel.
• Goods are being held at the port at the request of buyers for fear that they will be looted/destroyed en route.
• Kibaki still refuses to directly address the issue of insecurity. Sometimes silence speaks volumes
• Samuel Kivuitu, ECK chairman has made some interesting comments on TV
1. He was under intense pressure to make the announcement
2. He contemplated resignation but felt that he would be perceived as a coward
3. He claimed that the ECK had no legal standing to act on the objections of the political parties (Which I don’t buy, especially the discrepancy between results announced at constituency level and those at the KICC)
4. He made an even more fascinating statement about presidency being very challenging, and then proceeding to say that the problem was some of the people around the presidency. He culminated by saying that some of the people around the presidency should never have been born

• US Ambassador denies that the US had ever congratulated Kibaki for his victory. He clarified that what the US had congratulated were the Kenyan people.
• So far the US, the EU and Australia have voiced concerns about the presidential poll results.

 
Neighbours gather to discuss the events

Thanks to all of those checking into the welfare of myself and Ory. We’re OK.

For some reason shortly after my post I was unable to access any websites at all. I like to think that it was a purely technical hitch, which persisted all day. I’m now blogging from another connection.

News

• 140 people reported dead as per police estimates. Which means actual numbers are probably larger
• City Mortuary ringed by heavily armed guards, presumably to contain details of numbers of dead
• Government spokesman claims violence is in “one or two places”. Dr. Mutua, I think you need glasses and a hearing aid
• SMS messages threatening prosecution for forwarding some messages beginning to trickle in
• Government bans ODM rally scheduled for Thursday
• Nairobi Women’s hospital reports sharply increased incidences of rape, gang rape and sodomy based purely on numbers of people that have accessed their services. Considering the public transport system has ground to a halt I shudder at the thought of the actual numbers on the ground
• Kisumu and Mombasa have all but ground to a halt.
• Kibera has been cordoned off, as of yesterday afternoon. No going in or out.
• Mwai Kibaki’s New Year’s address goes out of its way to stress the elections were free and fair.
• Raila Odinga refuses to negotiate with Kibaki unless Kibaki concedes that he indeed lost the elections

The Morning After

My hood, South B, is right next to the Mukuru slums. As you can well imagine I have had ringside seats to the action. Stones have been thrown at me, my neigbourhood shops have been looted and torched, houses were broken into and looted and cars have been set on fire. Armed police have been patrolling ever since the 30th and we have been operating with our lights off. Sporadic gunfire, sounding suspiciously like machine gun fire peppers the night.

Mercifully the only damage I have suffered is a few broken windows.

I managed to get some pictures of the aftermath. I dare anyone to hold back their tears after meeting face to face people who have lost everything because of the selfishness of a few.

The above shots are from where two kiosks and adjacent homes owned by friends of mine were looted and burnt

Proprietors review their looted salon

This man ponders what to do after his livelihood is reduced to rubble

Debris strewn after the rowdy mob passed through

This shop was completely gutted

Remnants of the rioter’s roadblock

These shops were broken into and looted

Some businessmen flee

Police on patrol in their chopper

Remains of a gutted house

This shop was broken into and looted

Another shop that suffered the same fate

Depressing does not begin to describe this. Will post more pics later with a response to all those Pro PNU and Pro ODM messages/emails from people who have no clue exactly what happened on the 30th and exactly what we have lost.

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

A certain gentleman in Scotland has brought a totally new understanding to the relationship between man and machine.

Hostel workers were stunned to have their knowledge of coitus interruptus forcefully made that much starker when they discovered a guest in the throes of activities commonly reserved for committed men and women with a bicycle.

Yes, a bicycle.

After wiping away my tears of laughter, I’ve been trying to bend my mound round this for the last half an hour without success.

I mean, I find it difficult to understand that the same … er … Unchristian thoughts I get when I come across a vision like this one:

Are the same thoughts that Mr Robert Stewart gets when he comes across a vision like this one:

Dude!

It also beggars answers to the following questions:

1. Do you get the bike dinner first?
2. To whose place do you go?
3. Mechanics mechanics mechanics.

Dude!

Although there’s a gentleman, Mr Karl Watkins, who back in 1993 was arrested for a similar act involving a pavement.

In his case it can be said that the pavement did (and still does) get around …

 Kanye West & Dwele - Flashing Lights