Think of this: It’s August ninth 2017. All the shops have closed down. General Service Unit officers have been deployed all over the country. People are rioting and there is loss of property and loss of lives. Imagine that picture in your mind and the suffering.
Picture a small child crying knowing that his parents are no more...just imagine the pain. Is this what you want us to experience during and after the August 8 elections? All Kenyans, I urge you, let us take a stand against violence during elections.
When the party nominations were on, what we saw in some areas was ugly. Some people were injured while some were lucky to escape unscathed. The polling stations in some areas acted as battlegrounds. You would find an aspiring politician paying a group of supporters to disrupt the voting process. I was even surprised to hear that Bishop Margaret Wanjiru, an aspirant for the Nairobi gubernatorial seat, was arrested. Reports have it that she had hired some people to storm a polling station and disrupt the voting process.
It is always funny, and sad listening to politicians inciting Kenyans against each other but when disputes arise they are nowhere to be seen. Violence has claimed the lives of many. If you are a politician and you have been defeated, please put into action the saying, “If you can’t beat them, join them.” Let us learn from our past mistakes. Let us not have a repeat of what happened in 2007. Please, let us think first before acting.
Who said that a Kikuyu cannot be a governor in a county like Kisumu? In Kenya, we still practice tribal politics where people vote for politicians who belong to their tribes. We should stop living in a country run by two major tribes leaving other tribes to suffer.
We always talk of tribalism but few of us understand its full meaning.Tribalism can just start by a small act like a Luhya man with a piece of land to sell refusing to sell it to a Kamba saying that Kambas are bad but agrees to sell it to a fellow Luhya. Such acts are common in Kenya.
There is a Swahili saying that states that when two bulls fight, the grass is the one that suffers. In all this commotion, we are forgetting that we are hurting our future leaders. When people riot and fight, schools close denying children the right to education.
This year, we have slightly above one million candidates waiting to sit their national examinations. The question we should be asking ourselves is that when we riot and fight, causing schools to be closed how will the candidates write their exams? It is just a matter of weeks before the elections are held. What will you do? Will you agree to vote wisely and then maintain peace?
The writer is a Form Two student.
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