Nairobi's Uneasy Peace,Luo Lives Also Matter

GRIM CITY IN THE SUN: Nairobi’s uneasy peace

By Magunga Williams

We are at the Modern Coast bus station, waiting for the night bus that goes to Kisumu to pull up. I have decided that perhaps it is a good idea to go back home to decompress after the profound mess that was the election(s). I am standing at the counter, asking the chap in uniform when we should expect to board because it is already 8.50 pm and the bus that is supposed to leave at 9 pm is nowhere in sight. “Inakuja saa hii tu. Tulia tu kiasi.”

After engaging in exchanges about the political climate on social media, I am drained. I do not wish to prod any further, so I make way for the man behind me. He had not booked the bus earlier, but luckily, there are a few slots remaining. Not many people have been travelling because there are all these forwards coming in on WhatsApp that the Nairobi-Eldoret highway is not particularly safe for us Westerners. He removes his wallet and as he passes a couple of reds to the attendant, he turns and asks me, out of nowhere, “Wewe ulilipa na nini, ndugu yangu?”

From his thick accent, it is clear that he is a lunje. Lakini I do not understand what he is talking about. Not at first anyway. All I know is that I do not feel comfortable about strangers calling me brother because in the past couple of months, we have not been behaving like a family. Then I realise that he thinks that I have also just paid for my ride to Kisumu. “No. Me I already booked kitambo. Nililipa na Mpesa.”

“Aaaah. Ni nyinyi ndio mnatuangusha bwana!” I know exactly what he is talking about, but I do not wish to continue this any further. “Nyinyi ndio mtafanya hii resistance ianguke.”

This is post-the second Maraga petition in which the bid to challenge the legitimacy of Uhuru’s re- election has been banned by the Supreme Court. NASA had, just before the October 26th repeat presidential election, launched a nationwide resistance movement that required every one of their supporters to boycott the repeat elections. In addition, they announced the establishment of a People’s Assembly, as well as a nationwide boycott of products from particular companies that, according to Raila Odinga’s wisdom, were complicit in the rigging in of President Uhuru Kenyatta. One of those companies is Safaricom, and because I am still using the company’s mobile money application MPesa, this man who I do not even know takes offence. From his tone I can sense a hurt from betrayal of a cause that he has not even checked whether I am a part of. Simply because I am travelling to Kisumu, it means that I am part of the “militias”.

I walk away from the counter without talking to this resistance enthusiast. I do not care what he thinks of me at the moment. The only thing I am concerned about is getting home. To finally breathe. To heal.

***

It has been about three months since President Kenyatta took the oath of office for the second time. Swearing the same pledge he swore in 2013 before man, God and country. However, in as much as we have a president whose position should be a symbol of national unity, it has become everything but. The country is still divided and there is nowhere else that this rift is felt more than in the capital Nairobi.

Just before and during the election period, Nairobi was the eye of the political storm. Due to the fact that it is a metropolis in which Kenyans of every shade, creed and tribe reside, it became the epicentre of violence the moment politics urged the monstrosity that rages inside mankind out.

It also does not help that Nairobi is the seat of political and economic power in Kenya (and I dare say East and Central Africa), thus the battle for its control was not going to be easy. Both Jubilee and NASA brought their big guns, sometimes literally. Every week, NASA went to the streets, and every week they lost people to both the police and this gang of deplorables that came to brand themselves as the “Nairobi Business Community”. It was rumoured that the Nairobi Business Community was the militia arm of the Jubilee government that was poured into the streets to protect the businesses of Nairobi people during the NASA riots (which, to be fair, were never exactly peaceful). But we all know what they stood for, or against.

The elections may be over now, but the stink that they left behind still lingers in Nairobi. The disdain for the current government (both national and county) keeps escalating. The first time it reared its head was on December 12th, on Jamhuri Day, a few weeks after the inauguration of Uhuru. Usually, this would be the day Kenyans flock to one of the national stadiums with their families and friends to marvel at the marching of the Kenya police and defence forces, to gape in amazement as fighter jets dancing in the skies, and then to brave long-winded speeches filled with promises of grandeur. But we did none of that this last time. Embarrassingly, the president was left with half an empty stadium, even after reports came around that the event was delayed so that people could make their way to the spacious bleachers.

This was not a function of the Raila-led National Resistance Movement (NRM). NRM claimed that if they were responsible for convincing Nairobians not to attend the Jamhuri Day celebrations, it would be like a cock taking credit for the dawn. This was lethargy. We were tired. After two bloody elections, two emotionally exhausting Supreme Court petitions and an inauguration in which the president-elect’s own supporters were attacked and brutalised by the police, very few Kenyans had the heart to even show up. We stayed behind in our houses and did what we Kenyans do on holidays; we drank and ate. And tweeted. Unlike the time we were motivated and turned up like bees to go cheer our countrymen during the IAAF junior championships at Kasarani.

***

The earth completed its sojourn around the sun, and as it did, we changed the calendars on our walls with that same sense of expectation that people tend to have when entering a new year. Somehow the political climate seemed to have calmed down. The National Resistance Movement had quieted down. The boycott on certain products became less urgent by the day, and Raila Odinga kept on losing momentum by postponing his swearing in as “The People’s President”.

We’d gotten distracted by other “lesser’ troubles, like the national exam results, the Christmas holidays and rise of the death toll on our roads. It was a time of relative peace. That is how bad our politics are. They make you think that times when we have to worry about deteriorating education systems and consistent road carnage are peaceful times. Because then, we are not frothing at the mouth and holding each other by the throat. We enjoyed our moments in the sun. We had a short break of relative peace. But just like all good things, we know it will all go to shit.

The first thing that happened was our President Uhuru Kenyatta standing by himself while announcing cabinet positions. This was a far cry from what we had witnessed after he clinched the 2013 presidency. Back then, Kenyatta and his running mate William Ruto had a flowery romance going on, what with the public display of affection, wearing matching shirts and ties and generally painting the town red. This time, there was no honeymoon. And the change of mood reverberated like an African mother’s slap in an empty room – the kind you don’t see coming but which leaves your head ringing. There was a rift, clearly, in the national party. But we could not tell for certain why. All we saw were MPs fighting one another as to whether Ruto would gain full Jubilee support in 2022.

But if there was one thing that reminded us of just how weak political marriages are, it was the one incident that hit Nairobi County. It is incredible how whatever goes on at the national level is repeated at the county level.

On January 9th, Polycarp Igathe, the then Deputy Governor of Nairobi, was on Twitter defending the use of the Sonko Rescue Team in cleaning up the city. It was a silly argument, really, whose basis had no grounding in either logic, law or faith. He claimed that the use of the Sonko Rescue Team – an NGO founded by the Nairobi Governor, Mike Sonko – was legitimate because the Nairobi City Council workers were doing a terrible job at clearing waste. (Never mind that it was he and Sonko who were heading the Nairobi City Council itself.) The outrage of his boss using his NGO to do the work that their office is mandated (and financed by taxes) to do, was as lost to him as the possibility of Arsenal ever winning the UEFA Champions League.

Fast forward to three days later, January 12th, the very same Polycarp Igathe announces his resignation as Deputy Governor, stating that he has failed to earn the trust of his boss, Governor Mike Sonko.

It would have been funny if it was not so painful. It would have been hilarious if it did not epitomise the kind of hopelessness that this city emboldens. I mean, ever since Mike Sonko took over from the deposed Evans Kidero, we have witnessed the drastic decline in the quality of Nairobi life. At first, we were treated to the flashy show of exuberance – constant tweets about how much revenue collection has skyrocketed under the new regime and endless posts of how the Sonko Rescue Team was cleaning up the streets.

Then the tweets stopped coming. We were told the county had no money. Then hawkers found themselves in the city and turned Nairobi into the shithole that we deserve to be called by President Donald Trump. Sonko had campaigned on a platform that he was an Okonknwo. A mtu wa watu. A man of the people, a common man. And the common wananchi worshipped him like a god until he became one.

The tumultuous month of January has now ended. On the national scene, whispers about the division between Number One and Number Two are getting so loud, they have become actual conversations. It also does not help that there has never been a Number Two in Kenyan history who has ever succeeded his boss and emerged as president through the ballot. We have never seen a president hand over power to his deputy. The reason is simple: political marriages in this country are never borne out of love or conviction. They are arranged. They are fixed for convenience. When the convenience disappears (and it does vanish rather quickly), so does the sham of a union it purported to hold.

The centre holding Nairobi together has already begun to waste away. We are being conned by Kenya Power and being made to pay exaggerated bills for electricity. The price of basic commodities like food is on the rise. An avocado that would go for 5 shillings just the other day is now being sold for as much as 80 shillings. Unga, our staple food, is slowly becoming an elitist commodity. While these have little to do with the city’s management, we Nairobians are among the first to feel the bite.

Every waking day we are confronted with videos and images of gangs terrorising city dwellers. They snatch wigs off the heads of women in matatus. They hold men by the throat, squeeze tight until they cannot remember the taste of air, then rummage through their victims’ pockets and bags and make away with whatever they can. They are drugging people and having their way with them. They are raping mothers fresh from childbirth in the halls of our national hospital.

To be fair, this vermin is not new to the city, but it has certainly become more confident under the leadership of Mike Sonko. These thugs do not care that there are people or cameras watching. Perhaps they are remnants of that godforsaken election period. What did we expect would happen to them? We empowered them when we needed them to brutalise people from a different political party just six months or so ago. Now that the beasts we created are hungry, we have become their meal. They will not stop and interview you, sijui ask for your ID, before they yank off that wig or earring or before they twist your neck and pour you out like a drink. They have come for us all.

And the sad thing about it all is that the Kenya Police simply does not give a fuck. Instead of dealing with the issue head on, the Nairobi Police Boss Japhet Koome is advising Nairobians to walk in groups, especially in the evening, and avoid looking “enticing” to criminal gangs by not carrying laptops, phones, expensive jewelry. And we must at all cost avoid using MPesa and ATMs in the central business district. Seriously?

The fact that the police can concentrate on teaching us how not to get attacked instead of handling the attackers indicates just how we live in a beautiful city in which ugly souls are allowed to push the buttons.

*** On 30 January, the National Resistance Movement “swore in” Raila Odinga as The People’s President. If the Jubilee government’s past reactions are anything to go by, then the worst is yet to hit Nairobi. When two egotistical parties decide to clash again, where do you think the most blood will be spilled?

I have had the privilege of walking around this continent and beyond. Yet every time I travel, I tend to miss Nairobi. I can never be away from her for too long without feeling like I am cheating. And I know I am not the only one. I know how we Nairobians love this place almost to a fault. We would do whatever we can to save her from falling into the precipice. God knows we have.

But now we are sailing in unchartered waters. We do not have the benefit of precedence. We have a one-handed, clueless clown at the helm of the county, a stubborn national government, and an even more unrelenting resistance movement. We do not know how to handle this because we have never been here before. We cannot tell whether these are teething problems of a new administration or red flags of high incompetence. We cannot tell whether the pains tearing through Nairobi’s bosom are a signal of impending birth or symptoms of death.

If we are not careful, the most dynamic city in East and Central Africa – once known as “Green City in the Sun” – will soon become history.

Published by the good folks at The Elephant.

The Elephant is a platform for engaging citizens to reflect, re-member and re-envision their society by interrogating the past, the present, to fashion a future.

GRIM CITY IN THE SUN: Nairobi’s uneasy peace

By Magunga Williams Warning: This article contains graphic redacted photographs.

A woman sits behind her desk, typing furiously on her keyboard, preparing minutes from the last faculty meeting. She is frustrated because of the many mistakes that she keeps making; silly typos that she should not be making given the fact that she has been doing this job for the better half of her adult life. So she decides to take a rest. She picks up her phone, scrolls through her phonebook, looking for someone to talk to. Her thumb rests on a name. She taps on it, then hits the green icon on the screen. It rings four times before a woman with a mechanical voice tells her that George is not available, but if she wants, perhaps she can leave a message after the tone. She declines the offer. Then tries again. She calls three times; all three times her son does not answer.

On the other side of town, a boy of 26 walks into a Java Coffee shop, peels the camera bag from his back and places it next to his feet. He exhales for the first time in a while. He looks around him and the restaurant is full of people going on with their business as if nothing has happened. As if nothing is happening. He wonders whether they are even bothered, whether they really care. He wonders whether they heard the blasts…whether they have been hearing the blasts for the past, what, how many months now? He envies their ability to remain unbothered. Knowledge is not power. Knowledge a burden to those who bear it, especially when people refuse to listen. Or when they do not care.

A woman walks up to him with a smile on her face and asks what he would like to drink.

“A vanilla milkshake. Thick, if you may.” He does not even notice that he did not say please until the lady is long gone with his instructions.

But nobody can blame him.

The sun outside is showing off. His throat is parched, dry, like a terrible joke. Not from the heat outside, though, but from the white smoke that he has been swallowing since mid-morning. It is not a normal kind of smoke that one. Its introduction is announced by a thunder that shocks your heart like a defibrillator. It starts as a thick ball of smoke, then rises into a cloud that spreads. Unfortunately, this smoke preys even on those it was not intended for. And when it finds you, it will devour you methodically. It will get into your eyes and wash them with acid, then crawl into your nose to summon waterfalls of mucous. If you are careless enough to taste it, then you have tasted hell. Not even a Nigerian or Indian tongue can withstand that kind of fire.

And it never leaves, this smoke, because long after you have managed to outmanoeuvre the people who unleashed it on you, it still stays, lodged in your throat, waiting to be challenged by something its own size. A thick vanilla milkshake, George thinks, will do the trick.

He takes out his phone for the first time in a long time and finds missed calls from his mother.

“Hallo?”

“Hallo. GG. How are you doing, nyathina?”

“I am fine,” he lies. He hopes that she does not pick up on the crackle in his voice when he lies. There are many lies told in that phone conversation. Lies that he did not have to tell, but come on, the old lady is fifty-something years old with awful blood pressure. What good is the truth to her? What good is telling her that he was in running battles with the police? Protesting against police brutality and the senseless killing of supporters of the opposition? That he luckily escaped being whooped by men in Ninja Turtle suits, wielding fat planks of death in their hands? That, in fact, the leader of the protest, Boniface Mwangi, was shot in the chest by antiriot police using a teargas canister?

***

Earlier this year, a video went on social media showing a man holding a kid in one hand and a gun in the other. A crowd of people surrounds them, helpless. The kid is already in his control, and he is visibly begging for his life. The man with a gun then pins him down, points, then fires. The first shot does not kill the boy. Neither does the second. It is the third shot that sends him to his ancestors.

There is nothing the crowd can do about it. But on social media, a good chunk of people praise the man with the gun. There are a few people who condemn it, but the majority of the people say that that these kids have been a menace, causing trouble all the time. That that kid deserves the fate he got. Nothing is done to the man with the gun. He is a policeman after all. A Hessy, so he is called. A member of an elite branch of the police whose job is just that: to kill criminals. Thus, many a Hessy exist today in many crime-prone areas of Nairobi. Hessy wa Kayole. Hessy wa Githurai. Hessy wa Eastleigh. Hessy wa Dandora.

There is a new Hessy in town. Hessy wa maprotest. Actually, not just one, but an army of them. Unlike the other Hessies, these do not hide under the guise of plain clothes. They wear police regalia. Jungle green uniform, sometimes armed with guns, sometimes with clubs, sometimes with both. They are sent to quell protests and they do not give a damn about normal police work or procedure. They finish anyone or anything in their path. And just like the other Hessies before them, they commit atrocities under the lie that they are doing it for the greater good of the society.

According to a damning report by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, ever since the announcement of the results of the 8 August 2017 election, the National Police Service alone may have been responsible for the deaths of up to 67 people, the injuring of many more, and the source of pain for countless others. Up to 67 people is 67 people too many. (It is the same number of people who perished in the September 2013 terrorist attack on the Westgate mall in Nairobi, which generated worldwide sympathy.)

Thomas Odhiambo Oku, aged 26, shot by police outside his gate in Dandora. Kevin Otieno, 23, shot outside his gate in Dandora. Sammy Amira Loka, hit by a teargas canister on his chest by the police. Lilian Khavere, 40 years old, 8 months pregnant, teargassed, fell and was trampled to death by a stampede. Festo Kevogo, 30, shot in the head. Zebedeo Mukhala, 42 years old, shot in the leg and then trampled to death by a stampede. Jeremiah Maranga, 50 years old, G4S employee, beaten by police and left for dead. Victor Okoth Obondo, 24 years old, shot in the back.

The President of the Republic of Kenya has not come out to speak against this kind of injustice. He has not shown any remorse, except for when he tweeted about the death of one of his supporters who unfortunately passed away during one of his rallies in one of his strongholds.

Of course, the Kenyan police has since denied the findings of this report. But we all know that when it comes to the government, an allegation is never proved until it is officially denied. According to the government, these deaths were imagined. And that is the greater insult here – that it could execute the murder of people and then claim that it never happened.

If indeed the report by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch titled “Kill Those Criminals: Security Forces Violations in Kenya’s August 2017 Elections” is a work of fiction, deserving only of attention of the organisers of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction, then pray tell me this: Where are they? Where are the men, women and children named in that report? If they can prove that even one of them is still alive and well, even just on a balance of probabilities, then we would take this report to the bin.

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These are just a few of the names that are listed in that report. If this report is a lie, then where are these people? And this was just in Nairobi, by the way. In other opposition strongholds, many more names abound. Audi Ogada, the Chairperson of Kisumu City Residents Voice (KICIREVO), has more to say about the kind of brutality that has been leveled by the police on the people of Kisumu. He has been one of the first responders, dealing with whatever is left in the wake of a police invasion.

Ogada speaks of a 28-year-old boy who had his testicles clobbered by the police and was then thrown in prison. He writhed in pain for days until he (Ogada) spoke to the police to allow him to take the boy to the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Referral Hospital. Ogada speaks of the two-year-old girl from Nyamasaria who had a bullet the police put in her neck removed. And the women and young men who have had other pieces of lead removed from their buttocks. He speaks about police officers raiding shops in Kondele and robbing unarmed business people. Other reports on social media also speak about police officers burning down shops to smoke out protestors. The report by KICIREVO is a graphic horror scene, featuring, among other atrocities, a man lying dead next to his work place, thanks to a bleeding hole in his head, another with a busted jaw, and children from Mount Carmel Nursery School admitted to hospital because the police threw teargas into their school.

At what point will we cut the bullshit and call this what it is: persecution? This is not even about the protests. This is no longer about protecting businesses. Because a good majority of people who have been slain by the Kenyan police were not even protestors. They were innocent bystanders. Besides, there have been violent protests even in Jubilee strongholds, but none of those people have been killed for it, or been met with the kind of brute force that NASA people have endured, especially those of the Luo community. The areas reporting these kinds of hostilities are Kisumu, Homa Bay, Migori, Siaya and NASA strongholds in Nairobi like Kibera and Dandora.

History provides the context for the targeting of Luos by the Kenyan state. The whole Luo community has been branded thugs whose only characteristic is their high affinity for chaos – for the destruction of the businesses of others. This kind of branding and framing is reminiscent of what happened in Rwanda (the reduction of the Tutsi to inyenzis or cockroaches), in apartheid South Africa (calling black people kaffirs) and in the United States (when black people had no rights). The strategy is to reduce them into something less than human and thus make them easier to oppress and kill. Audi Ogada recounts how the police raided neighborhoods in Nyalenda, Manyatta and other neighborhoods in Kisumu. They stormed into houses, dragged out the men, beat them up within an inch of their graves…and in some cases (like the fateful night of August 10th) shot them dead.

And what was their crime? They were protesting. They were exercising their constitutional right under Article 37 of the constitution. They were picketing against the election results that the Supreme Court of Kenya declared null and void.

Speaking to the BBC World Service, Ambassador Martin Kimani, Director of Kenya’s National Counterterrorism Centre, defended this kind of police brutality by saying that the protestors were violent. This is true. It would be a lie to claim that the protests have been peaceful. In fact, protesters had set tyres on fire and barricaded roads. Some criminal elements in the group had also committed crimes, including looting and robbery.

Be that as it may, none of these alleged crimes deserved indiscriminate police brutality. They did not warrant the use of live bullets. It is a shame that a man of Ambassador Kimani’s stature can embarrass himself like that on television. That kind of force is not proportional. Kimani should have referred to Article 244 of the Constitution of Kenya, as well as the Sixth Schedule of the National Police Service Act, read in compliance with Sections 49 (5) and 61 (2). Yet, if we recollect well, in the call for any kind of significant change, violence inevitably rears its ugly head. Expecting anything else would be wishful thinking. Violence was part and parcel of the civil rights movement under the leadership of Malcom X and the Black Panthers, the Black Lives Matter movement in the US today, the fight against apartheid in South Africa, the struggle for independence throughout the world, and the clamour for multiparty democracy here in Kenya. There is a cause and there are the people behind it. It is important that we distinguish between the two. All of the above causes involved violence, yet they are celebrated today, and the people behind them are honoured. So why does the cause for electoral integrity in Kenya be any different?

Luo Lives Matter is a slogan that was popularised on the Internet. The Government of Kenya, through its spokesperson Eric Kiraithe, claims that the slogan is part of a larger devilish conspiracy meant to instill fear amongst the Luos and to generate hatred towards the police. But as a Luo, I do not need the help of a slogan to instill fear in me. I am already afraid. I have seen body bags sent to my hometown of Kisumu days before elections, and I have seen bodies fished out of Lake Victoria weeks after elections. I have organised a peaceful protest in which we did nothing but cry for help and we were still beaten. I have read my history and I cannot forget how former President Jomo Kenyatta ordered the opening of fire onto a crowd, killing at least eleven people. And now my tribesmen are being butchered by the police, and I watch helplessly as the police say that I am hallucinating.

I do not need anyone to make me fear the Kenyan police; it is a default setting.

***

As the cold milkshake eases into his mouth and down his throat, George wonders just how many more people need to die for this to become a problem. The killings are a deterrent, yes, but only for so long. You can only oppress a group of people for so long before they decide that they have had enough. For now, he logs onto Facebook and likes yet another profile picture of a person posting about Luo Lives Matter. They do. He matters. It is such a shame that some people think Luo Lives Matter means that the lives of Luos are the only ones that matter. It simply means that Luo Lives Matter as well.

It is such a shame that some people think Luo Lives Matter means that the lives of Luos are the only ones that matter. It simply means that Luo lives matter as well.

He wonders how many Luo men have lied to their mothers. When their mothers ask how they are doing and they say fine simply because it is a formality and not a real representation of how they are actually doing.

He is not fine. He has not been for a while. It is such a horrible feeling, dreading the moment your mother will find out how you are really doing – because you are tired of telling lies.

Published by the good folks at The Elephant.

The Elephant is a platform for engaging citizens to reflect, re-member and re-envision their society by interrogating the past, the present, to fashion a future.