By Jacob Opara
It is now one year and seven months since there was a hotly contested regime change in Kenya, bringing in the young and wealthy President Uhuru Kenyatta with his outspoken Deputy President (William Ruto). They were voted in on the rhetoric of digital change and optimized service delivery. This was a special leadership whose tenure and how exactly they would conduct affairs on the Capital Hill was unprecedented. One complexity in their tenure was the much popularized indictment at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for both of them. Before being voted in, President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy had been indicted at The Hague based International Court being charged with various charges of crimes against humanity after being adversely mentioned in the Post Election Violence of 2007-2008 that claimed close to 1000 lives displacing thousands of Kenyans. Locally, there were dissenting voices among the political elite lamenting the failed electoral machinery which was considered to have been orchestrated to conceal rampant electoral malpractices and fraud. Sympathizers of this perception questioned the ‘timely’ systematic failure of the electronic voting system which the country had gone at great lengths to acquire from abroad with teething pinch on the taxpayers coffers. Upon their swearing in, the gentlemen were proverbially between a rock and a hard place; the international community backed ICC baying for their blood externally, and unrelenting political pressure and an adversely divided political populace at home.
There would never have been a better time for the gods of fate to strike at the duo than in 2013 when literally everything seemed to do anything but work for them; from a myriad of election petition cases challenging their election to imminent claims of wanton nepotism, corruption, and tribal-inclined state appointments threatening their young staggering government. Having to delicately balance their state roles and ‘accused-persons-status’ at the ICC exchanging trips to the Hague based Court, the duo did what was only humanly possible sometimes opting to personal relations charades aimed at endearing them towards the citizenry as being down-to-earth leadership as a way of popularizing their tenure with increase criticism when things got tough.
Political Pundits endlessly discussed the successes and disdains of the Uhuru leadership but even among them, opinion remains widely varied with those in support of the regime considering its performance exceptional while those against it rubbishing such scorecard as insult to the Kenyans’ intelligence. Well, the brevity of this piece does not allow me to delve into the successes and shortcomings of this youthful regime. Be that as it may, one area of concern that appalls as it annoys is the rampant deterioration of security in the entire country in the last 12 months. To many there has been no other time in the history of the country that insecurity has been so rife like it has been lately. Over 10,000 people have been killed in armed robberies, terrorist attacks, and inter-clan clashes, and cattle rustling in the past 12 months. To put the situation in perspective, for the first time in Africa, an elite high-life shopping mall was held hostage with hundreds of civilians by terrorists for an unprecedented five days during the Westgate Mall Attack earlier this year. As if this was not enough, terrorists have attacked over five police stations, killing officers on call and stealing guns and ammunitions before setting the stations ablaze. To rub it in, weeks ago, one of the President’s escort car was stolen from his motorcade! No Pun intended!
It has just been absurdly bad, horrible to say the least. The government’s response to these increased and sustained insecurity cases, was to deploy among other measures, Kenya Defense Forces on Kenyan soil to try to contain the situation. As expected, the army men have been ruthless; so ruthless that they have become the source of insecurity to residents of Kenya, killing at will without an ounce of respect for human life let alone the law.
As of now, social media in Kenya is awash with cries for justice for the 14-year-old Kwekwe Mwandaza from the Coastal town of Kwale in Mombasa who was killed in cold blood by these terrorists working at the behest of government orders when they short her at close range during one of their operations. The only daughter from an impoverished family of six was ordered out of her tattered bed into blinding light by combat-yelling-troops together with her family. In confusion she staggered into sight and was blatantly shot in the head by the police to the glaring disbelief of her family. Appallingly, the following day the police dismissed the incident as ‘a case of mistaken identity’. She was killed by the men and the instrument that was meant to protect her.
In a statement the police shamelessly claimed that the post-mortem of the poor girl had revealed that she died ‘from a heart condition’ whereas a private pathologist hired by a Children Activist’s group called Haki Africa reported that she was killed by an injury to the head caused by a bullet. The Mwandaza family now lives ripped apart by the cold-blood murder of their innocent daughter, so innocent she did not even recognize her assailants according to her brother who watched in horror as his sister fell to the bullet. It has been over two months since the incident and the government remains mum on the operation that it publicly sanctioned. So many civilian killings have occurred in the recent past without proper accountability being taken by those responsible. It is appreciated that extenuating measures have to be taken to restore security in the country but the perpetrators of this heinous act sniffing life from an innocent girl barely through her teenage life have to be brought to the book. This is a price she surely did not have to pay! In Faye Kellerman’s words, unless and until those responsible for Kwekwe’s brutal killing are brought to book, justice will not have been meted. To show solidarity and increase awareness of Kwekwe’s case, share your sentiments on the Facebook page. See TV News Coverage of the sad story
