Why it’s crucial for Kenyans to come out and vote wisely

Voters look for their names on IEBC voting list mounted at Moi Avenue Primary School, Nairobi, on August 6, 2017. Kenyans will go to the ballot on Tuesday. PHOTO | DENNIS ONSONGO | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Mr Msando was killed just after giving media interviews in which he spelt out in detail the various measures he and his ICT team were taking to prevent technical glitches and rigging in elections.
  • The killings do send a chilling message – that those who dare to question authority could suffer a similar fate. 
  • Popular politicians JM Kariuki and Pio Gama Pinto were murdered because they envisioned a more humane society, where everyone, not just a select few, would have access to opportunities.

When I heard that Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission ICT manager Chris Msando had been killed, I couldn’t stop crying.

I didn’t know Mr Msando personally. I had never even heard of him until his death.

But for some reason it felt as if someone very near and dear to me had passed away.

It was the same sinking feeling I had some 27 years ago when the badly mutilated body of Foreign Affairs Minister Robert Ouko was discovered in a thicket near his rural home and when human rights activists Oscar Kingara and John Oulu were shot dead in broad daylight in 2009.

We may never know who killed Mr Msando or why, but past events suggest that the murders of some of our best and brightest people are usually planned.

MEDIA INTERVIEWS

Mr Msando was killed just after giving media interviews in which he spelt out in detail the various measures he and his ICT team were taking to prevent technical glitches and rigging in Tuesday's elections.

Popular politicians JM Kariuki and Pio Gama Pinto were murdered because they envisioned a more humane society, where everyone, not just a select few, would have access to opportunities.

They and many others whose lives have been similarly brutally cut short by powerful forces posed a threat to the status quo.

After every political killing, there is a lot of hue and cry for justice, but usually efforts to investigate and prosecute the suspected murderers come to naught. 

Often, there are attempts to cast doubt about the victims’ personal lives and to sully their reputations.

CHILLING MESSAGE

The killings do, however, send a chilling message – that those who dare to question authority could suffer a similar fate. 

Four years ago, on the day after the Supreme Court ruled that the 2013 General Election was free and fair, I wrote a column titled, “Wanjiku is dead but who will mourn her when everyone wants to move on?”

It told the story of a woman who, after a long struggle, managed to remove a corrupt and dictatorial leadership from power only to realise that the people who replaced the regime were no better than their predecessors. Wanjiku’s dream of a free and just country were shattered. She died of a broken heart.

GRIEVING

I wrote the piece because like many other Kenyans, I was grieving for what might have been.

The Supreme Court decision seemed to sanitise and legitimise what many instinctively knew was an electoral process that was morally, constitutionally and technically flawed.

Then  Presidential candidate Uhuru Kenyatta and his running mate, Mr William Ruto, had serious cases to answer at the International Criminal Court (ICC), but this not deter us from voting for them.

On the contrary, we decided that the election would be a “referendum against the ICC”.

We suspected that the High Court was not being sincere when it had earlier ruled that it had no jurisdiction to determine the suitability of candidates vying for the presidential election, but we kept quiet as issues to do with the integrity of candidates were swept under the carpet to pave the way for all manner of tainted characters to vie for political office.

REMAINED SILENT

We even remained silent when the BVR kits failed on the election day and manual registers appeared at the polling stations.

A “green register”, which no one had heard of before, also miraculously reappeared.

But we told ourselves then that keeping the peace was more important than challenging what appeared to be an incompetent – and perhaps rigged – election.

We accepted and moved on in the hope that those we had elected would do the right thing by us and that our vote would not have been wasted.

We got the standard gauge railway and Huduma Centres, but we have also lost billions of shillings through corruption, which seemed to have infested every government department as cartels and tenderpreneurs made a killing off the backs of the taxpayers.

EUROBOND

The country’s debt soared as it went on a Eurobond and China-facilitated borrowing spree. Kenya became a nation of only two tribes.

I can’t predict the outcome of Tuesday’s elections, but I know that the brutal murder of the IEBC’s ICT manager has cast a dark shadow on an election that was already being viewed with trepidation by a majority of Kenyans.

Fear of violence or voter apathy might prompt many of us not to vote, but vote we must, if only to honour and pay tribute to the late Msando.