How a man holding his precious githeri managed to unite all Kenyans

Kenyans had just finished voting, back in their homes waiting for the Independent and Electoral Boundaries Commission to tally and announce the winners.

IEBC’s KIEMS kit (Kenya Integrated Electoral Management System) was working at its best, minute after minute, streaming in results to the national tallying centre at KICC, with the same being displayed on our screens.

In the middle of the process, NASA flagbearer Raila Odinga abruptly held a press briefing, claiming that the IEBC database had been hacked and that their system had failed. He carried with him log files, presumed to be evidence of how the system could have been hacked and votes tampered with.

IEBC later came out to defend their system, denying claims of alleged hacking into their system – dismissing NASA’s claims.

The tussle went on until the IEBC requested all form 34A and 34Bs be submitted to the national tallying centre, making Kenyans aware that whatever was being projected on TV screens and the website were not official results – the forms being the tie breakers.

Then the internet once again happened. A humble man, who woke up in the morning to vote for his preferred leaders was pictured enjoying a ‘jwala’ of githeri as the queue slowly moved.

We thank God for Photoshop experts. Githeriman was now eating his githeri next to Trump, Pope Francis, funny enough, he was even hanging his githeri at the top of Mount Everest. The internet went crazy for Githeriman.


Kenyan media raced to find the humble man, who was not even aware that he has become an overnight celebrity just by being himself.

For a moment, Kenyans took their minds off elections, forgot about tribes, forgot about threats and focused one Githeriman.

Martin Kamotho (Githeriman) was found in Kayole. He admitted not owning a smartphone and that he was just informed that his picture was doing rounds on the internet.


He was rewarded handsomely, I guess Kenyans saw the need to have such a person during testing times, a person who would make Kenyans have one thing in common besides sharing a country.

Ureport thanks Martin Kamotho the Githeriman for bring that much-needed humour to our lives when we needed it the most.