Iran better than Kenya; where is my vote?

Do you get the feeling that Iran might just be better than Kenya as far as the various Human and Civil Rights go? Although we could be similar as far as corruption, vote rigging, media bans, and the blame game go too, they seem more tolerant of peaceful dissent than we are.

I must say I was impressed to see women for the first time getting involved in active campaigning during the electoral process in Iran. The leading lady who was involved in the campaign process was in the person of Mrs. Mousavi. And that was not all, not only were women active in the campaign process, they are now more than ever vocal, vociferous and no longer victims as has been the case in most Muslim countries that see women as second tier citizens. I had this big smile on my face as I saw these young, gorgeous, educated and eloquent ladies making their case in front of the camera, with men behind them, nodding. Better still, the anchor went ahead to say that there were more women in Tehran Universities than there were men… no wonder the men were behind the women, nodding. And that was a great thing to see, first because it crashed the view that all Muslim women are the sat on, submissive, illiterate, uneducated, subjugated type, and second because it showed that women are on the path to something greater no only in Iran but in the greater Islamic faith.

Iranians were organized in their pre election campaigns, with debates, rallies and as expected in most democracies, there was also mud slinging and all other underhand tactics that opponents use to get an edge over their counterparts. But the mostly used, illegal, yet most preferred by incumbent regimes has been vote rigging using state machinery and influence. We saw it happen in Kenya in the 2007 elections and it is claimed to have happened in the Iranian elections last Friday. If you have read this blog for a while now, you will know that I don’t think much of Kibaki; and neither will our history. If it were not for the part of learning from history bit that people are always encouraged to do, I would have preferred a blank be put in the years that this guy was and will be president. That said; Iran is now going through the same problem we did when Kibaki rigged his way into office, though various differences emerge and which define both the similarities and differences in Human and Civil Rights issues of both countries.

First of all, I have not heard that much about how the alleged rigging took place. It probably did and if so, it was the slick kind of rigging that Moi had perfected where ballots get lost without a trace. Kibaki was crude in his rigging; in fact, the crudeness of his rigging defines his leadership style and subsequently the mess after mess after me that we continuously find ourselves in. This guy was so crude that in his defense, he became childlike saying, “the others also did it”. Do you remember when you were a kid and you got caught red handed doing something you wasn’t supposed to be doing, your first cause of action would be dropping dime on your siblings hoping it would lessen the punishment you would receive or thinking it suddenly made things right if the others did it too. So Iran is stuck with claims of rigging and the President is having a rough time settling into office as opposition organizes rally after rally after rally, demanding a rerun. In retrospect, do you find it curious that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Kenya prior to the elections? He might have been taking advice on the do’s and don’ts of the rigging process and the aftermath.

It is no wonder that Cartoonists are having such a field day comparing the Iranian post election debacle with Kenya’s and there was one actually showing Ahmadinejad wondering whether to call Kibaki, Raila, Mugabe, or Tsvangirai for advice.

After Kibaki stole the elections here, I was furious. It was my first time to vote and to have my vote violated like that destroyed something in me. “Have you no shame?” are the words of my high school principal which came to mind every time I saw that man on TV. Our principal used to ask us that whenever we had done those things that cannot be mentioned during the day. Here I found myself wondering; what makes a man drive a country to the precipice and yet feel not even an ounce shame? Iranians now say their election was stolen and are demanding a rerun and not a recount because as was the case here, a recount will do nothing to make right the wrongs of a flawed process. But unlike Iran, we had a tougher time dealing with Kibaki and his henchmen for they had a greater motivation to protect their turf; greed and delusions of grandeur. Rarely before had the Civil Society in this country been that active. Their demands that the Government acknowledge our Human and Civil rights automatically made them enemies of the state. This was like a thief stealing from you and then going ahead to block your only road to the courts to seek justice.

“Where is my vote?” so read (and rightly so) the placard of a young Iranian woman who is one of the many people who have been protesting the flawed reelection of Ahmadinejad.

Kenyans like me whose votes meant nothing since the race had been decided way before it started also wondered, “where were our votes?” but unlike Iranians, we did not have the luxury of protesting. I wanted to but too many people were getting shot and killed. As I said, I was really angry because my first time to vote saw my vote not count. Rigging is the worst thing you can do in a democracy because it kills the faith in the whole process and when people lose faith, chaos and anarchy reign because fear becomes the next avenue of consolidating power – which is what is happening now if you unveil the Mungiki, the extra judicial killings, the assassinations, and the appointments to crucial positions in the country. Though these appointments, alignments and positioning usually come up to ward off any attacks, they have instead, on the contrary, become the launch pads of attacks themselves. But I digress.

Because of the rigging, I felt this urge to go out to the streets to look for my vote. I felt this deep compulsion to put the president to task, and ask him where the hell my vote was. I felt compelled to do my best, in my small way, to make this president’s stay in office the worst ever, beginning with continuous demonstrations reminiscent of the ones in Thailand. But I did not get to do any of those things because the Government did not let me. My right to free speech, right to assembly, and most of my other fundamental human rights were suspended though a presidential decree because my exercising them would not augur well for any illegitimate Government. Of those who dared demonstrate, over 400 died from police bullets. And as far as I am concerned, this government still owes me a demonstration that I should have gone to when Kibaki stole the elections.

I expected Iran to ban demonstrations like Kenya did which it did; I also expected them to reign in on the media, which it also did but went further to also block many social networking sites and other popular sites that can be used to disseminate information. That is in many respects similar to what happened here after the elections. But there is also a marked difference in the way that those dissenting with the ban were dealt with. Similar to Kenya, opposition supporters still went to the streets daily since the elections, and will probably continue to do for the foreseeable future. The ban is still outstanding, and in the first days of the demonstrations, there were 7 deaths (now said to have risen to 15) reported and fewer or none thereafter; it is bad but at least the number is not over 400 as was the case in Kenya when the police shot and killed demonstrators. There was dissent in both places yet there were more deaths here.

Some of you will argue that the demonstrations were banned for national security, BULLSHIT! Once again, this was a lame excuse to deny Kenyans their fundamental rights and freedoms, both of which are guaranteed in our constitution. The opposition in Iran has defied the order banning demonstrations and went ahead to organize theirs, everyday of the week since the elections. That presents us with another marked difference. I wanted to carry a placard asking where my vote was because like many Kenyans who have since swore not to vote ever again; I felt aggrieved by some insolent corrupt old men in office who stole my democratic right using government machinery. I may have voted for them but the whole point of democracy is for the majority to have their way and for the minority to have their say. But when the minority have their say and then force their way; hegemony, autarchy, oligarchy, are the words and not democracy. Iranians defied the ban and yet I do not see the chaos that Kibaki foresaw when he banned demonstrations here and his force killed over 400 people in the crack down on dissenting demonstrators. I only see swarms of people, marching silently in the streets of Tehran, having their say. Was that so much to ask for?

This is usually the point where most Kenyans start taking sides, labeling me as a sympathizer or hater of one party or tribe or another. Put that aside for a while and consider this. Kibaki stole the elections (no arguments there) and got sworn in under the cover of darkness; which was as good as stamping his face with a GUILTY sign. Come the next elections, the next party will as easily rig itself into power and nobody will have the moral authority to question them because, “hey! You did it too” seems to do as a valid justification. You’ve got to make a stand somewhere, and since this was my first time to vote, and my vote did not count, I will make an example out of Kibaki, the culprit who in this case stole my vote and not in the way that a girl steals my heart.

Iran has banned the media from broadcasting the protest but as I have come to see, Iranians are a resourceful lot. They have found ways of accessing the banned websites using proxies. I heard of a program called TOR that people in those countries that block access to certain websites can use to access those very sites. This program tricks the system that those accessing the sites are doing so from beyond the borders yet they are in those very countries and cannot be detected, thus the proxy bit. In this information age, it is almost futile to try and stop or suppress the flow of information whether by bullet or by bans. It is this blockage that ignited fears of rigging in the first place in Iran. During the Election Day, the opposition could not communicate because their primary communication channels were jammed with help from the Incumbent, effectively preventing coordination and communication from the different voting centres across the country. In a democracy, elections should not only be fair but must also be seen to be fair; a point that most Kenyans seems to miss as they consistently argue about who was right and who was wrong.

I was watching ‘Freedom of Speech,’ a stand up comedy by Eddie Griffin where he talked about the fight between Christianity and Islam about who the messenger was between Jesus and Mohammed. To which he said with finality, “Fcuk who the messenger was! The question is; did you get the message.” That is the whole point that I am trying to make with regard to democracy in Kenya. Fcuk who won the election! The question is; was it free and fair?

The ban on the media in Iran showed me something else about Iran. There are close to 23 million internet users in Iran. It gets better. Iran has the highest per capita bloggers in the World. It is said that there are over 60,000 bloggers in Iran. These are like 60,000 media houses. Try banning them or controlling what they write; it is migraine making affair. As luck would have it, most of these bloggers support the opposition and they are active as ever having their say and the world is watching, reading, and tuning in. In comparison, there are relatively very few bloggers in Kenya and our internet penetrations levels are abysmal to say the least. But the potential is there and that is what counts. I myself love blogs because of their interactive nature as merits and demerits of a post are dissected but more so because it is the purest form of unrestricted freedom of speech. Here, I will have my say regardless of a ban, the threat of a bullet, and I can do it from a bunker. I was not a blogger yet when my vote went MIA but I am now and I will make sure I write until words fail me.

I hate being made a fool of especially by fools. It is not that the fools lied and I bought it, rather, it was that the fools lied, cheated, stole, and they made sure that there was nothing I could do about it without having a having bullet through me. This country owes me a demonstration through which I would have demanded that my vote not only be counted but also must also count. This country owes me a placard that should have read, WHERE IS MY VOTE? This country owes me and every other right thinking Kenyan who never got the chance to express their disappointment, discontent and utter disgust of the electoral process an avenue to finally vent these out through our guaranteed rights to assemble. And for every peaceful protest that the opposition in Iran go for, this country owes me a chance to prove that all I wanted was to walk, demonstrate for my vote, dissent peacefully, carrying my placard, having my say, and then going back home. This country owes me that and I swear I will have my say, one day, and not just in this blog but also in Uhuru park which Ironically means Freedom, that many Kenyans were denied.

In retrospect, can you imagine how embarrassing it would have been for the Government to expect utter chaos but like Iran today, only get hundreds of thousands of people, walking silently, dissenting peacefully? It is my belief that the police were put in place to bring the chaos so that the Government can have yet another excuse to reign in on peoples rights and freedoms.

Iranians are better off than Kenyans in as far as they have handled themselves after their election. Similar yet so different, wouldn’t you agree?

The True History of Kenya; not that crap we read in school.

Knowledge is power, but like a knife in the wrong hands, it is dangerous to those without the mental capacity to process it well.

That said; I am here to set the record straight. Do you recall that at the height of the Moi era, all parastatal choirs used to sing songs that gave heaps of praise to the man, Mtukufu Rais Daniel Toroitich Arap Moi, reminding us the he was the commander in chief of the armed forces etc. etc. Despite all that was wrong with the country, the few Radio stations and the single TV station of the time never saw these and went ahead to proclaim that this man was faultless. Prior to that, Kenyatta was the ish and all those who did not see eye to eye with him were doomed, politically, financially or at worst assassinated.  That was expected but I am sorry to say that a country of intellectuals like ours should never have been so scared to the point that we wrote history in the way that the then political figureheads commanded but not as they happened. And then we feed that shit to the kids in school today in their history and geography classes.

I read that crap in school too and you can imagine my shock when I realized I was bright and dug deeper to uncover the missing pieces of the puzzle.  My digging did not reveal much since most people did not record in writing what really happened for their own reasons (fear or favour). Most of the state sanctioned books of the time reveal similar crap and that is one thing I will never let my children read. I must commend Hillary Ng’weno for his ‘The Making of a Nation’ documentary which is the most comprehensive effort at telling Kenyans what actually transpired. That is what my children will watch in their lessons of history.  They need to know the real truth about the history of their country and ENOUGH with the state secrets BS since too many thieves are shielded by it.

With that in mind, I will now tell you the history of Kenya as I have come to see it without the entire ‘sainthood’ ring to it that we have been fed in all of our classes. I will start with the perceived independence from our colonists…

Jomo Kenyatta;

The first president of this country has been perceived as the great liberator, the person who fought for the independence of the country – and from some of the praises he has received – you would think he did it single handedly. Yes this man fought for our independence, but so did many other people, some dead but celebrated, some alive but peasants, some alive but bourgeoisies, and some still in Government – I kid you not.

Back to Kenyatta; we got our independence when he was still in prison, but the honourable men of the time who had bled for our Independence refused to form the Government until Kenyatta was released from prison. What did Kenyatta do after he was released? He became the Prime Minister and then president after one man stepped down from the chairmanship of the party for him. Over the first few years, he systematically sidelined those who had fought side by side with him for the independence of this country. He put some in the very jail cells that they had shared with him, surrounded himself with newbies to the independence struggle, and went ahead to do the unthinkable.

Perhaps as a sign of an institutionalized mentality, he became like the colonialists themselves in most of what he proceeded to do. He changed the constitution and made Kenya a one party state. He went ahead to promote tribalism by surrounding himself with men from his tribe and home area as opposed to those who had the same vision of an Independent Kenya, and who actually fought for it. Remember, colonialists are the ones who pitted tribes against each other using the age-old psychology 101 principle of ‘Divide and Rule.’ Kenyatta could not see beyond this and went ahead to exacerbate it.

But what he did to the MAU MAU fighters and something which can never be said enough times is simply unforgivable. And that to me defines the whole of his leadership. After the MAU MAU left their farms to go into the forest to fight for our Independence, Kenyatta called them “a disease” because they wanted to be acknowledged. And four decades later, you still see these dilapidated old men and women still seeking acknowledgment and compensation. The compensation part is next on this list but first one question, which country in the world refuses to acknowledge beyond rhetoric those who put their lives on the line for the independence of their country? Only in Kenya, ama?

You probably think that these men and women seeking compensation is self serving and that sacrifices require no payment for that is the nature of sacrifice. Well, let me educate you on what I dug up as I tried to fill in the gaps. The MAU MAU left their farms for the forest where the fighting went on for years. Finally, Kenya got its independence and it was time to come back home. But to the shock of many, there was no home to come back to. The farms were gone, assigned to new people by Kenyatta as he sought to appease loyalists, and reward cronies. Have you heard the story that people were asked to throw a stone and wherever it landed on either direction, would be how far your land stretched. But maybe I exaggerate; it may have been as far as yours eyes could see. And you wonder why people own districts of land in this country while others are squatters.

Earlier, the colonialists had come and took over the most productive land in the country. They first rounded up the ancestral owners of the land and threw them in reserves. They tilled these land with mostly incidental crops which they exported back home. And back home in Britain, these settlers either paid their Government or were paid by their government to come here – not for Safari – but for the productive land. But after independence, these settlers had to vamoose so that this land could revert back to their ancestral owners. But their vacating was more organized compared to the Jua Kali way in which Mugabe evicted the settlers in Zimbabwe.

The Kenyan Government was given money by the British Government to buy out the settlers, which it did, but the likes of Karen Blixen, Lord Egerton, and Delamere etc. chose to stay. And from the ridiculously colossal tracts of land they own, you can imagine how much land these guys had between them. Now came the time to give back the land to the ancestral owners of the land who included most of the MAU MAU fighters and Kenyatta bolted; he bailed from the deal. He thought that himself, some friends here and there, loyalists and any other person who could be bought for leverage deserved it more. Can you spell NEOCOLONIZATION? His choice not to acknowledge freedom fighters across the country including the MAU MAU was one of the major reasons he fell out with his then VP, Oginga Odinga, who later resigned. And then he goes ahead to call the MAU MAU a disease when they demand to be acknowledged for the fight and compensated for their land.

Is it any good to read in the history books that the MAU MAU fought for independence without revealing that they were treated like dogs after independence? History books are not works of fiction with rosy endings the way we were taught in school; history is what it is, factual records of what transpired without bias, or as Kenyans like to say, without fear or favour.

That was merely land, now we get to the assassinations. Pio Gama Pinto was one of the first people to go. Why? You may ask. Well, Pio Gama Pinto had socialist ideals which automatically put him at crosshairs with the Kenyatta Government. But that was not what got him killed. It is said that Pinto was the brains behind all that Oginga Odinga – the biggest threat to the Kenyatta presidency at the time – did. He was shrewd, calculating, and an impeccable strategist who – if he had lived – might have rewritten the history of Kenya as we now know it. But with Pinto dead, it is argued that Odinga lost his way and hence got completely sidelined. Later, the brilliant Tom Mboya, the go-to-man who made things happen in the Kenyatta government was murdered for he had become too powerful for his own good. Then J. M. Kariuki was next; he was the only Kikuyu at the time with country wide appeal. That did not augur well with the wheeler-dealers of the time and he got wasted. He had become too popular too fast for his own good.

Put that in the history books then we can talk. And I understand the nature of writing and expect that perspectives will differ on how people will choose to see these things. I however will not understand the lack of perspective. I therefore ask that the least one can do is put the above facts in the books and let people argue on what the merits may be. Everything is open to interpretation, but only if all the facts are laid bare on the table, which is all I ask.

Daniel Arap Moi

You have heard the songs about the man which best represented the man’s propaganda agenda. His was a baptism of fire that came at a time when tribalism was rife with the GEMA intensifying their efforts to ensure that one of their own succeeded Kenyatta.  He became president all the same and instead of becoming better that Kenyatta, he proved to be another institutionalized person whose creativity as a leader was boxed in by tribalism, corruption, and dictatorial tendencies.

It is said that the man changed after the failed coup of 1982, before I was born. But I think this was just the excuse that he used to do what he did. Since then, the man clamped down on everything including democracy when he pushed for Kenya to go back to the single party state. I should say that Kibaki was one of the key point men who pushed this motion of a single party state through when he seconded it in parliament. I have said that so that Kenyans can learn to review the history of people both within and outside parliament before electing them. But that was it, the bill went through and democracy went out. Then the trouble started.

This was that time when universities across Africa were the birth place of ideas and especially revolutionary ones. Student leaders were true leaders and they made their feelings known to those in power at the time. Moi was not a pleased man on the showdown and hence the worst of his leadership came to the fore. Students who dared rise against the man were arrested and taken to Nyayo House where they were tortured by the Special Branch officers, today known as NSIS. This went on throughout the 1980’s where most of those who dared speak against Moi and his Government received the similar treatment. The basement of Nyayo house was the symbol that defined Moi’s presidency. People would be taken to Nyayo house and some went missing without a trace.

Those at odds with the Moi government included James Orengo, Paul Muite, Prof. Anyang Nyong’o, Martha Karua, Oginga Odinga, Mukhisa Kituyi, Kijana Wamalwa, Raila Odinga, Koigi wa Wamwere, Gitobu Imanyara, Gibson Kamau Kuria, Khaminwa, Alexander Muge, Keneth Matiba, and a few others whom I cannot recall now as I type this. But they are just that, few. There were others like Prof. Makau Mutua who were expelled from their respective Universities and Mutua had to study in Tanzania and then Havard in the U.S. These men suffered in one way after another under Moi, but that did not stop them from speaking out their minds to demand for a return to Democracy and we owe our democracy to them. It was during this time of increasing dissent that another brilliant personality was taken down. Robert Ouko was murdered in the most foul of way in what was seen as a Government sanctioned murder.  But Ouko’s murder was probably what fed the increasingly louder calls for democracy, so much that Moi finally gave in and Kenya returned to become a multiparty state.

There were other high profile Government sanctioned assassinations  to follow in the Moi Government.

‘It is our turn to eat’ is a phrase that defines Moi’s regime. Following the example of Kenyatta, he surrounded himself with people from his own tribe and proceeded to loot the country’s resources. I usually muse that Kenyatta cleared most of the land in the country – mostly stolen from peasants – and that by the time Moi got into the picture, most of it was already gone. And since Moi had to get land to grab from somewhere, he turned on parastatals. This was the time that parastatals were run like the personal properties of those appointed to run them. Moi’s people ran all parastatals down by taking billions of shillings in loans that were seemingly institutional but which ended up in the pockets of those manning these parastatals. Service to the people was not the issue in the corruption ridden government of Moi. It was service to self and hence the billions of debt that most institutions of Government still have to date. A promotion during Moi’s time was when someone was transferred or appointed to a ministry or parastatal that had the best potential for stealing or fleecing. And fleece they did.

After the parastatals were broke beyond reprieve, people had to steal somewhere, and that was when the Mau Forest saga began. The Moi government started allocating forest land to loyalists; people who today own huge ranches in a place that was once forested. In the same way that Terrorists and other similarly armed groups use civilians as Human Shields during times of conflicts; those MP’s and Ministers who benefited from the underhand Mau Forest deals are now using a whole tribe as civilian shields. Look beyond the façade and you will realize that these MP’s collectively own more land than the thousands of tribesmen that they are claiming to speak for. In that light, Moi enabled thieves to hide behind tribal cocoons when it is the character of the person and not the tribe that is in question. Subsequent suspects have picked up on this as was the case with Kimunya, Ruto, and now Uhuru.

But with the increasing democratic space, it became more difficult for Moi to work. IPPG, was the first major sign of changing times, the there was the constitutional review team and all these culminated to Moi leaving office in 2002. And boy did we sing when he finally left. For 24 years, this man had perfected his politics and to finally see him go was like a burden off our shoulders.

Mwai Kibaki

Then Kibaki came and suddenly both Kenyatta and Moi look like saints.

That said; I must commend the trend that is coming up today, where Kenyans from all walks of life are standing to be counted. We are challenging the status quo by daring to do things different. The blogs around are becoming more creative in advocating for certain things here and there and that for me is a start. The main stream media is also getting bolder but writers (especially those who record our history in books) are yet to follow suit because the only book that has tackled head-on by writing things the way they truly are – It is Our Turn to Eat – is by Michela Wrong, and she’s not Kenyan. We are still scared of our Government; too scared to even stock books that dare speak the truth to power. I hope those aged men who have nothing to lose can do this country a great favour by writing books on those lost bits of our history that have not been watered down to sound like nursery school rhymes; and which we then call history. Bullcrap!

I am sure that I am not the only one who has read those eternal words that read, “People should never be scared of their government. It is the government that should be scared of its people.”

Finally, please, let us not lie to our children by teaching them half truths and whole lies about the history of their country. How else will they learn if not from the mistakes of their forefathers? Do not lie to your kids; I surely will not lie to mine – when I get me a Tumbo Jr.

We owe that to them, to posterity.

Missing Moi and the little things…

“It feels like it’s eons since Moi was President,” those are words uttered by my mum who misses Moi especially in light of the insecurity contagion that has engulfed the country. It is not my mum alone who misses Moi; many including Mutahi Ngunyi, a renowned political analyst declared that he sometimes misses Moi, and I am now saying that I wish Moi would come back. More and more, I have started wondering what is important for me, my family and friends, and this country at large. That has meant contrasting what was there when I was born (when Moi was president) until Kibaki came in and what has taken place since to date.

I love the Louis Otieno show on Citizen TV though I have followed him from the shows that he used to host in KTN, NTV, and now Citizen. So I guess it is what the man has to say and how he interrogates people in his show that draws me to his shows. That said; he recently did a number of shows meant to examine the State of the Economy and the last show of these shows that I would like to talk about. But I should mention that how Louis Otieno runs his shows is how the rest of the hosts in this country ought to because he takes no prisoners and makes sure that questions are actually answered. I will try and dedicate specific articles in this blog to the topics covered in his shows.

In this last show, there were very interesting personalities but they are not who I would like to talk about today. I would like to talk about specific comments made by each and which drove me to write this blog despite the day for my CFA exams getting dangerously close. On the topic of health, one MP, Peter Kenneth, said that when he was growing up, the local hospitals and clinics in his neighbourhood were always open, 24-7, and that Kenyatta Hosiptal was a referral hospital unlike today. To add to that, Dr. Mcfee said that when he moved back into the country, road used to be swept every day of the week, but now, roads are not swept any day of the week. Need I mention security?

But the icing on the cake was the three word sentence uttered by Dr. Mcfee in reference to our blind following of politicians. He said, “wananchi watukufu watakufa!”

Those statements took me back to my teenage days when I was ignorant to most things political or otherwise. I remembered how easy it was to be bliss in my then ignorance. And how could I not be? There were potholes on the roads, but I did not drive hence my ‘what the hell’ stance. There were no high-rise buildings coming up everywhere but that made the visit to the city all the more worthwhile – something to boast about. I lived with ignorance about what tribe meant and even got to understand and speak some basic Luo – the tribe of my neighbours – mind you I cannot speak my own mother tongue. That was bliss at its best.

But just the other day, after hearing the comments of Peter and Mcfee, and taking into account what my mum, Mutahi Ngunyi, and even Moi himself have said, it was not just the ignorance of my teenage mind that made our lives simple, but happy then. There was something more… and those are what I have decided to call the ‘little things.’ I love neo soul and on listening to the little things by India Arie, I wondered whether leadership, like life should be about the little things.

Under Moi, roads were swept; under Moi, politicians were not this careless with their words; under Moi, the local hospitals used to run 24-7, they may not have been better equipped, or fully manned, but they were there, open, 24-7; under Moi, you knew who was in charge, where the buck stopped; under Moi, the borders were clear to Kenyans, Ugandans and even the to the Al shabab Militia; under Moi, you would see your president, which at times of crisis is sometimes all you needed to feel assured that all would be well; under Moi, 10 millions did not face starvation; under Moi, your daily security was at least assured; and under Moi, the Mungiki were running scared.

I remember the mood in the country after the 2002 elections when Moi’s project, Uhuru, was defeated and we ululated as if we had beaten the man himself. This wise old man gave up power peacefully, but he had already warned us. I am sure you have seen those clips on TV when he said, “mtazungushwa zungushwa mpaka mwisho,” (you will be taken round in circles until the end.) Which circle are we on now? Is somebody keeping count? I wouldn’t blame you if you have not. They are too many, on so many levels that it is hard to keep count. But one way of keeping count is by counting the number of committees created since 2002, or even districts.

The old man, Moi, after we sang at the top of our voices that “Moi must go” gave us a dose of his wise counsel when he said, “you are now singing Moi must go, Moi must go, there will come a time when you will sing Moi must come.” I am not singing that Moi must come (you see, I cannot sing to save my life), but I sure as hell wish the old man was at the helm today. But on the day that he said those words, I wondered whether it was because he knew the nature of these men so well that he was sure we would be doomed under their leadership. I think so. Kalonzo, Saitoti, Poghisio, Kibaki, Ruto, Raila, Mutula, and a host of other leaders had served under the man and I think he had tested their mettle and did not like what he saw.

Only six years on, all seven years on, most of what the old man said has come to pass, and now I miss the man. The blissful ignorance of my teenage years was because the man made it easy to be so. What about now? We had the worst violence that this country has ever seen in its post election history. Over a thousand died and close to half a million were displaced. We had people leave Kenya to be refugees in other countries. Now women and children are languishing in camps across the country. The Mungiki have come up and out, beheading people, massacring villages and standing up to the Government, but worse still, they are recruiting small school children in to their murderous ranks. Why am I saying this? These two incidents alone show that children, barely into their teens, have borne the greatest brunt of the existing political reality. While we enjoyed bliss under Moi, they are suffering, starving, or dying today in their teens.

There are many who will now throw in that old argument that the economy grew under the man Kibaki. Many will attest that high-rise buildings have come up all over the place under this man. They say that roads have been rebuilt and that the economy is now robust unlike under Moi when it barely grew. I confess that I once too took to that line of thought. But I grew out of it when the costs of it outweighed the benefits. First, there was the old man on TV who when asked about how the economy has recently improved, he candidly said, “when the economy was not growing, I could afford a bread but now that the economy has grown, I cannot.” That said a lot to me, both as a person and as a budding economist. I hope you now see why I write about the little things.

With Moi, there were no billion dollar contracts signed, but a man in the village could ring home bread and a piece of meat in the evening. There was no youth fund but teenagers could afford the ignorant bliss because the Mungiki were looking to recruit them or face beheadings. Under Moi, he may have been called a dictator, but when people cried, the man listened. The roads may have had pot holes but they were all the same swept every day of the week. The clinics and dispensaries may not have been well equipped, but they were all the same open and served people 24-7. Things may not have been rosy, but the man never hid, he came out to meet the people, to talk to the people, to the point that we said too much. And now that Kibaki said nothing when the country burned, and recently when 29 people were massacred in his backyard, he still kept mum, don’t you miss Moi?

My mum calls Kibaki the meanest person he has ever seen and my good friend Githii confirms. Githii who hails from somewhere near the president home even told me a story to back that claim. I should now tell and most of you will actually remember Mzee Moi for the following. He gave us milk when we were in primary school (Maziwa ya Nyayo). Whenever he visited a market place, he would buy some bananas and oranges from the mamas there and pay them thousands of shillings for them. There was even a time when he passed by our school (Nakuru High School) and on running to the fence to see his motorcade pass, he actually stopped, talked to us through the fence for some minutes and then gave us 50,000 shillings hard cash. That was Moi. That is Moi, generous to a fault. And I know that most of the things in your home area came to be as a result of Harambee.

He has been accused of stealing money to build personal projects, but six years on, lets compare and contrast. There has been over 200 billion shillings lost over the past years alone and nobody can account for where any of it went. The big shots who schemed and fleeced the country are the Government. I am not sure whether Moi stole, even in the Goldenberg scandal, but let us say he did. So where did the money go? Some of it went to build the Moi Girls high School in Eldoret, one of the best performing schools in the country. Some of it went to build Kabarak primary, secondary, and even Kabarak University, some of the best of their kind in the country too. There is also some which went to build the Moi orphanage in Nakuru and the rest of the Moi-Something across the country. Please tell me you feel that… That Moi is a man of the people, that most of what he has done has been for the benefit of society. He invested only communal projects that touch the very essence of our lives – health, education, security etc.

And you got to give it to the man, because in the 24 years that he was president, there was no Sunday he missed going to church. That may well be the reason he remained grounded.

With that, I ask you, what would you rather have, the little things or the “economy”? We can have both, but not with this man Kibaki, or any of the people who work under him, for him, or with him.

So the next time you vote, please look for a man with Moi’s heart and courage, but with the education of Kibaki and nothing else (everything else about Kibaki is rotten.) MOI was about the little things. You felt the man. You felt safe. The little things worked. And now that we have seen how bad it can get to focus on the big things, I hope that the next man you vote in will have a record of doing the little things.

The little things, if you do not know by now, are about you and me.

So yes, I MISS MOI. If you don’t like it, BITE ME.