When Kibera resident Helen Nanjumbia was attacked for attending a recent political rally ahead of last Tuesday’s general election in Kenya, the trauma of the violence she witnessed 14 years ago came flooding back.
Her father was hacked to pieces on his way to work four days after the December 27 2007 election. They found him dismembered, his private parts stuffed in his mouth. She was 13.
“God only knows what happened. I don’t know what happened,” Nanjumbia said, still shaking at the thought of the violence that killed more than 1,100 people and displaced up to 600,000 when supporters of newly declared president Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga butchered each other.
The election was so badly rigged from both sides that it wasn’t clear who the winner was.
Though she nowadays keeps her political opinion to herself and her close circles, attending political rallies of any of the candidates and parties is a way of earning a couple of hundred shillings (R27) in tough economic times.
A friend, Brenda Mwikali, was 11, selling paraffin next to the road when she saw a man’s arm being hacked off for his political beliefs on that day. Her father, though, was lucky enough to escape when a mob tried to beat him up. “He’s very good at running, so he came back [home] very fast.”
Agents in this exercise cannot proceed in the manner which we are proceeding, as if we are doing a forensic audit. We are not moving as fast as we should.
— Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission chair Wafula Chebukati
The day started normal, she said, “but then on the road, people started chasing each other, holding pangas. It was really bad, a lot of people died.”
She said people “just came from nowhere and they started killing people”.
To this day Mwikali’s father, together with many others, leave for their rural homes during election time.
Though the trouble started in Kibera, one of the biggest and best-known informal settlements on the continent, a number of Nairobians left the city. Business has mostly been at a standstill all of last week — and it still is slow.
Mwikali said some foods such as the local maize meal staple, or unga, have been harder to come by, and even in upmarket supermarkets food shortages have been felt due to prolonged disruptions in the supply chains. Mwikali also said she was apprehensive about her two children, as the reopening of schools was postponed to Thursday because of the delays in results. She doesn’t let them out of her sight, in case of a recurrence of 2007’s events.
Mwikali and Nanjumbia — who both live with their children in small, one-room homes in very built-up areas of Kibera — are apprehensive about the announcement of the presidential election results, which has to happen by Monday, according to the elections rules.
It is proving to be a close race. With just more than half the 14-million votes officially counted by Sunday, William Ruto, with 51% of the counted votes, had a slight lead over Odinga, who had 48%.
Both attended church services at the weekend in which they prayed for peace, amid widespread speculation that Ruto would be declared the winner.
Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission chairperson Wafula Chebukati on Friday blamed party agents for the slow official count.
“Agents in this exercise cannot proceed in the manner, as if we are doing a forensic audit,” he said. “We are not moving as fast as we should.”
On Saturday night, Odinga’s chief campaign manager Saitabao Ole Kanchory caused a stir at the national results tallying centre in Nairobi, when he pushed his way to the lectern and alleged vote rigging, claiming: “Bomas of Kenya is a scene of crime.”
Riot police were deployed in the centre to keep the peace, with some sources saying a legal petition might follow the results announcement due to the close finish.
Media houses did their own tallies from the results forms in the first three days after last week’s election but abandoned their efforts when they displayed different results as their counts reflected different forms, fuelling speculation of rigging.
A group of local and international NGOs and professional bodies, including Amnesty International and Transparency International, put out a statement calling for calm, reminding the nation “that a protracted contentious post-election period will increase social tension, that if left unchecked, will trigger violence and displacement”.
Presidential candidate George Wajackoyah, who ran on a ticket of legalising cannabis, said he was confident of a win — despite having less than half a percent of the votes. “Keep peace, love your neighbour,” he said. “Kenya is bigger than all of us.”
There have been localised reports of scuffles and violence, but residents of Kibera choose to believe peaceful elections are a possibility.
“The leaders should not make us fight,” Nanjumbia said. “We should just live in peace, because they live in peace. Their families are upcountry.
“As for us, the small people, we don’t know where to go. We are just here.”
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