Why Kenyan Senator Mutula Kilonzo died

Only days after the sudden and shocking demise of Senator Mutula Kilonzo, a seasoned lawyer turned politician who was not afraid to speak his mind however controversial the issue at hand was, and theories have begun precipitating left right and center, ranging from the mundane to the bizarre.

As the disturbing facts finally sink into our minds, many tongues have been left wagging, some pointing out that the good old lawyer might have committed suicide, others insinuating that food poisoning could have been at play; while still others believe it is just another political assassination.

Puzzled many

Perhaps explaining the reason why there have been calls for a probe into his death which puzzled many.

In a country where political assassinations have been part of our history, it becomes increasingly unbelievable that the high and mighty, and the politicians and the who is whos, and the “Top Honchos” in the society can actually meet their creator following natural death or old age or even failing health.

Sadly, only the poor, the “Riff Raff of society” die of natural causes.

As we console the bereaved and mourn the dead, we must be alive to the fact that anything could have been a cause of his death, including but not limited to natural causes.

 

A year ago, Kenyans witnessed yet another demise of a prominent politician, the late professor George Saitoti who was until his death, a cabinet minister.

Hon Saitoti died in unclear circumstances after his chopper caught fire and killed all the passengers.

His death has never been satisfactorily demystified, and a commission probing the death pointed to human error.

Such grim statistics raise questions over the deaths of any other politician.

Fast forward to 2013 and another cabinet minister bites the dust.

This time a controversial, intelligent and brilliant senator, barely a month into office.

According to a political journalist who interviewed him, Mr Kilonzo is said to have intimated that he had an explosive piece of information that could have shaken the whole country, but could reveal it at the right time.

But that was too late, death caught up with him before he could divulge his little secret.

The script changes

According to evidence pieced together by witnesses, Hon Mutula kilonzo ate his favorite meal of roast meat Friday evening at his farm house in Maanzoni, just a few kilometers outside Nairobi.

It was after he retired to bed when he passed on in his sleep, but not before vomiting in his sink.

“Mr Kilonzo was found dead in bed yesterday at around 11 am by is workers,” reported the Daily Nation.

Police and medical investigators thronged the home of Mr Kilonzo shortly after he was pronounced dead.

In sharp contrast to Hon Saitoti’s death in the thick of Ngong forest, police rushed to the scene but could not seal off the area, something that commissioners investigating his death said could have been a plot to compromise and tamper with evidence.

 

So, just a curious question, what were a whole contingent of police doing in Hon kilonzo,s home shortly after his death?

Medical forensic experts and the Criminal Investigations Department could have ably probed the matter.

We just wish that if anything else rather than natural death will be disclosed as a cause of death, we will not hear a situation where evidence could have been compromised as with the Saitoti case, which an investigative journalist concluded was a political assassination.

Perhaps this is the reason why denizens are refusing to believe that their beloved politician succumbed to failing health, or as the media suggested cardiac arrest.

Cardiac arrest has been confirmed as the single largest killer of humans in the USA.

As the government pathologist performs a post mortem of the late Kilonzo today, Thousands of Kenyans will be watching, to either give life to their myriad of reasons why he died, of dismiss them altogether.

And finally, as we wait anxiously to know the cause of his death, we pray that Mr kilonzo died of natural causes and that the truth will be revealed to all and sundry.

That said, death has robbed the country a revolutionary leader, who will be remembered for his firm stand for what was right, even when everyone else thought otherwise.

May his soul rest in eternal peace.

When the gods want to destroy a man, they first make him mad

It was the legendary Chinua Achebe who once quipped,’ When the gods want to destroy a man, they first make him mad,’

A fortnight ago, Kenyans were treated to yet another political drama when the Prime Minister Raila Odinga descended on to Kondele grounds on the fringes of Kisumu city armed with a bible.

The PM is said to have equated himself with Jesus of Nazareth, and also reminded the crowds that just like Jesus, he has suffered but he is alive.

The PM also condemned last week’s ruling by the Supreme Court, which upheld the win by President and vice president elect Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto as the duly elected leaders in the March 4 polls.

“Supreme court ishindwe, shindwe!” he chanted in unison with his die hard supporters.

And social media was awash with reactions and counteraccusations as Kenyans again tore each other to parts in line with their ethnic affiliations.

“I wonder how low the PM can sink, this was a whole new low.” Wrote Mustapha

“When will he move on with his life, he lost,, period,” asserted another Kenyan.

According to Kevin Amwatsi* Raila odinga has really failed his followers who have started to realize how pedestrian he has become following the court’s decision.

“Si Mjinyonge, U stole our victory!”(Kill yourselves you thieves, you stole our victory) screamed Owano Felstus.

Raila told supporters that the Supreme Court had teamed up with the enemies of development to end his political career.

Word has it that he might make a comeback into house politics, and plans are underway to either nominate him to parliament or prevail upon an ODM MP to step down for him so that a by election could be held where he will vie for MP.

My canon ball tells me that he might get another thrashing at the ballot if he results to such unorthodox theatrics of divisive politics.

A number of MPs were heard claiming that without the duo of PM Raila and outgoing VP Kalonzo Musyoka, the government will run roughshod on them(Opposition) thereby reducing the country to a one party state.

“The duo will keep the government of the day on its toes,” said an ODM MP who sought anonymity.

Raila and Kalonzo are yet to comment on this developing possibility.

On using or misusing the bible, Raila might attract the wrath of God to the people, a face book friend told me.

“This man will not escape the wrath of God, he has mocked him, while blaming his political detractors, let us pray that God does not punish the whole country for one man’s carelessness,” commented Wasike Geoffrey* on Facebook.

While Raila and his ilk think that the newly elected set of leaders will not deliver the goods and will instead shepherd us to doom, let’s wait and see what happens, because, no one is a prophet to know what will happen, an old man told this writer.

I end where I started, ”When a mad man walks naked, it’s his kinsmen who feel the shame,” Chinua Achebe, May his soul rest in peace, once said in his fourth novel, A Man of the people.

*Not the real names.

The postmortem of the BVR electoral system: A realist’s perspective

Just hours after the Kenyan Supreme court made  a landmark ruling that validated Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto’s victory as the president and vice president elect, thousands of tongues were left wagging, wondering whether justice had been delivered or not.

Prime minister Raila Odinga told a press conference that he will abide by the ruling, as civil society groups called for an audit of the electoral system, in particular the failed Biometric Voter Registration and the Electronic Voter Identification Devices whose failure in the poll were described as “systemic”.

According to the civil societies, the Independent electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) ought to have told Kenyans what happened to the machines and whether they were faulty or not, in order to quash similar failures in future.

This writer looks at the mathematics, the facts and ergonomics that made the BVR system a complete failure in Kenyan polls, in The BVR postmortem.

The facts:

·         IEBC listed the number of registered voters to be roughly 14 Million.

·         It also confirmed that each and every voter could take a minimum of 10 minutes to cast their votes

·         That only 12 Million voters actually cast their votes.

The assumptions:

·         That the BVR system worked perfectly.

·         That most Kenyans even the illiterate took a maximum of 10 minutes to vote.

·         That all systems worked

The postmortem:

·         Let’s take the 14 million voters and multiply that with 10 minutes to get the number of minutes that all voters could take to cast their ballots.

14,000,000 * 10­= 140,000,000 minutes

·         Let’s consider the number of polling stations.

·         There are 45,000 polling stations, each with approximately h seven clerks

Therefore: 45,000*7=315,000 clerks

·         Let us divide the minutes with the number of polling clerks

140,000,000 minutes/315,000=444 minutes

·         Divide this with 60 minutes to get the number of hours

444.444/60=7.40 hours

·         All things remaining constant, it could have taken us roughly seven hours to vote.

But!  It took most Kenyans in several parts of the country 6 to 7 hours to cast their ballot.

So what went wrong?

I can bet that the IEBC took the issue of civic education so loosely and handled it in kid gloves.

It was clear that most polling clerks, their superiors and most people could not operate the machines, leave alone leading their equally unendowed countrymen to successfully be identified or even use the machines to vote.

In some instances, no one could remember the passwords for the BVR machines, therefore keeping voters waiting for hours on end.

The failure was not purely systemic but was coupled with the fact that most Kenyans have a small grasp of technology.

Even if a forensic audit is conducted on the machines as requested by the petitioners in the case against the IEBC, the machines will still work, even today! That is my two pence.

So what next after the Supreme ruling of the court?

Song, dance and jubilation broke out in various parts of the country after the Supreme court dismissed five petitions and declared Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto as the president and vice president elect, triggering protests in Mathare and kibera slums which are regarded  as PM Raila Odinga’s strongholds.

 

In Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto’s strongholds of Eldoret and Central Kenya, Kenyans caused major traffic snarl ups as they blocked roads to celebrate what they termed as a ‘massive win’.

However, Raila’s supporters are reported to have broken into a supermarket in the Eastlands area of Huruma and looted property worth thousands of shillings.

Hordes of others are said to have descended on the social media platform to trade insults and unpalatable words and to ‘attack Kikuyus and Kalenjins’ saying they had been robbed of victory and that they will not honor the court’s ruling.

“Kikuyus are thieves, I think I will start stealing and selling drugs just like my president,’ opined a disgruntled Owino Jakababa.

“He is not my president, he is a president for the two tribes,” Akinyi Judith retorted.

Away from the social media where people use pseudo names to hide their true identity and back to the streets and I was appalled and thrilled in equal measure on Saturday evening, an hour into the announcement of the Supreme Court’s decision.

What disturbed me most was witnessing a man being thrashed by a gang of hooligans who claimed he came from Uhuru Kenyatta’s stronghold and was therefore supporting him.

It is so sad that at this day and age people who have worked together, lived together and schooled together  can be so polarized to descend to a whole new low, that of attacking each other on tribal basis.

Tear each other into pieces on social media, that amounts to democracy and freedom of expression, and how you do it there determines whether you are civilized or not, but not in the streets. Coming from a certain tribe that has produced a leader does not mean you voted for him, nor does it mean that you should be punished for exercising your right to vote.

Tyranny of numbers

Democracy is and has always remained the voice of the majority who also respect the rights of the minority, and sadly, it is a game of numbers, anywhere in this world.

I was however happy to see that as others whined and grumbled because of a court’s ruling, others were using that opportunity to better their lives.

As Otieno and Biko hurled stones in Nyalenda and kibera slums, Kamau and Maina were making a killing selling framed photos of Uhuru Kenyatta along Moi Avenue, working on the precincts of a legal requirement that all businesses should bear the framed photo of the sitting president.

I can bet that their families forgot their misery that evening and celebrated the win in style, while some families slept hungry because of the win.

The constitution dictates that the Supreme court’s is the final arbiter of presidential electoral disputes, and everyone including the five petitioners knew that and had to abide by tat ruling, there was no other option.

Raila Odinga may have worked tirelessly to bring democratic space into this country, but at the end of the day, it is me and you, the people who elect their leaders, no one should be imposed upon the people, no matter how famous, popular or gifted he/she is, democracy dictates that!

So what next for the losers?

Lawyers for the Jubilee and the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission opined that Raila’s petition was, by and large, a well orchestrated bid to share powers with the president elect.

The petitioner’s allegations were that there were around 8, 100 votes that had been added to Uhuru Kenyatta’s win and according to the lawyers, that was the same threshold that made Mr. Kenyatta achieve the 50%+1 vote as stipulated by the constitution, something that raised major questions with regard to the intentions of the fifth petitioner.

Again, as Kenyans wallow in hate speech and waste precious time insulting each other and keeping the pot of ethnicity boiling, others are toiling very hard in shops, garages, supermarkets, markets, matatus, bodabodas and in offices to better their lives as they have realized that no president will place a morsel into their mouths.

As a few lost their lives struggling to channel their frustrations elsewhere, the children and relatives of the loser’s were nowhere to be seen.

Politicians are politicians; they have friends in high places and use us to fight their battles, for nothing!

Sources privy to CORD and their political machinery has insinuated that the PM might make a comeback into politics.

“..It is believed that an ODM nominated MP might be prevailed upon to step down for Raila Odinga in parliament,” Sunday Nation reported.

While Raila’s supporters behave as if all is lost, their hero is immensely wealthy, owning East Africa specter International, a company that fills and resells gas cylinders all over the country, among a barrage of other companies and minting millions by the day as they remain dirt poor-the riffraff of the society who can only be used after every five years.

Wake up and smell the coffee my friends…………..We belong together, they belong together.

”I Rest My Case.”