Five things we learnt from the General Election

Somebody has been mucking around with our money

The headline story on the Daily Nation Monday, March 18, here, rightly got quite a number of Kenyans (at least those who posted their responses online) angry and quite surprised. That the electoral commission had actually been told about buying the Electronic Voter Identification Devices when they didn’t have a lot of the functionalities needed for the Kenyan election and proceeded to buy them is on the face of it quite farcical.

In the week after the election, I spoke to two Presiding Officers, and being very good observers and explainers, they created the picture for me of an organisation that was clearly never ready to deploy the voter-identification devices. Both were trained on how to use the laptop and fingerprint scanner in groups of at least 300 where only one laptop was available for the entire lot. Both did not touch the device. In one case, it did not work. On polling day, one told me the device he had been given managed to suck the power out of three batteries within one hour of starting work.

Both did not send the provisional results from the polling stations because the phones they had been given were either not configured for their stations or could not work altogether. At one of the stations, a Master Presiding Officer was introduced at the last minute.

I have read elsewhere that this was a cock-up and there are some who believe that it is a conspiracy as well.

Whether it is one or both will surely be determined by the Supreme Court in, thankfully, the next week or so. What is mighty clear  right now is that someone has been mucking around with our money,  and that someone must be asked a few tough questions.

Caught offside; the Press

Many of us in the Press have come upon the realisation in the last two weeks that we were  caught offside on this General Election.

No. We were not caught offside in the sense that we missed the alleged moment when the will of Kenyans began to be changed. If that did happen, then we were fooled big time,  and you would need more than a millennium to feed such a large number of nosey people a lie that big.

We were caught offside when the electronic transmission system began to fail and all we could do is fan speculation that it had been hacked into. From my observations and interviews, the largest factor in the failure of the transmission was a very boring one: people couldn’t send the results because they had the wrong phones or simply didn’t have them at all. The identification kits failed because some had been left lying around so long the batteries needed to have been charged at least six hours before the polling stations were even opened. We missed this story from the very beginning; when the machines used in training failed to work; when the systems failed as they were being shown off to the parties and on Election Day, when we didn’t stay long enough in the stations we were observing to realise that the clerks did not know the equipment well enough, or long enough to tell that after counting, the same clerks couldn’t get their phones to send the data.

In the aftermath of the grand failure of the electronic systems, people have resorted to the sexy belief that someone hacked into the system  and was playing around with the machines to come up with a favourable result. We know it didn’t work. We also know that had the human hardware issue been addressed, the rest would have been moot.

In our haste, we missed some of  the beauty of Elections 2013

We naturally lost sight of the small gains made in the electoral process so far as we lambasted the IEBC and had the impression created that they ran a sham election.

Who would have predicted in 1992 that we would one day have an election where the candidates would be easily identified by having their photos on the ballot paper? The journey to this began of course with the idea to have the votes counted and the result announced publicly at the polling station. That of course eliminates the chances that a mischievous fellow, of whom we have no shortage in this country, would stuff the ballot with more votes. The beauty of this is that a party can, with a chain of agents at every point, virtually aggregate and come up with its results long before the national tally is arrived at. This was partly the reason the IEBC says at Bomas, all it did was share the Form 36 with the presidential agents before the results were read out. This, of course, assumes that the candidate had agents at every level and would have a figure to compare with that on the form.

We have laws, and we can read them

At a meeting recently, I was shocked to learn, after having to respond to a few dumb questions, that the person we were chatting with knew not that Parliament passed a law to entrench the Provincial Administration.

I was shocked because in my estimation, there exists a law for every situation in Kenya today, courtesy of the Constitution and the Acts rushed through Parliament to make it fully operational.

Think of it this way: had we not had the provisions in the law, Uhuru Kenyatta would probably have been sworn the day after his victory was declared by the IEBC. Any petitions would have been trying to unseat a President. In this, the lacuna that exists as the President-elect waits for the decision of the courts is filled by having that committee headed by the Head of the Civil Service.

Of course we have had the positions of ministers  and the coalition government become a political football in the intervening period. My very boring answer to this has been that since the law does not allow one to occupy two State offices, the ministers who want to stay in office will be asked when the National Assembly, Senate and Governors are sworn whether they want to stay in office or assume the posts to which they have been elected.

A colleague and I discovered recently that from all those minute examinations of the laws as they are dragged through Parliament, their relation to the Constitution and the old ones they replace we have all manner of laws, and boy can we read them.

Media is not your pipeline, sir

My pet beef throughout the electioneering period was that journalists were not allowed to do their job. Because there were eight presidential candidates, each had to get equal coverage, seemed to be the rule of the game. Yet it is impossible to cover a packed rally the same way you would a few people sitting under tents at a compound in Lavington. It is thoroughly unfair. Come March 9 and President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta applauded the media as Raila Odinga claimed that local media was in a conspiracy to deny him and his party. Ironically,  and Maina Kiai was quick to point this out, he did this with Royal Media Services owner SK Macharia standing beside him. Was there a media conspiracy?

Of course there wasn’t.

On Wednesday March 6, Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka addressed a press conference. His coalition’s main grouse was that the event at the Serena wasn’t covered live. He made claims that some constituencies’ results had been inflated to the point that the total was more than the number of registered voters. I was among a small team at Bomas that checked the allegations against the declared results  and found them untrue. In fact, one of the constituencies listed had not been declared. When the facts were put to the VP through an aide, he asked for that claim to be ignored.

At Bomas, former Kibwezi MP Kalembe was amongst politicians who were heckling the commissioners as they read out the results. After one such incident, we approached and listened to his claims. He had a video, shot on his Samsung Galaxy 3, which he claimed showed vote-counting taking place without any light. I stopped listening when I looked closer and saw that the source of illumination in the video was a hurricane lamp. A lot has been said about the media in Kenya in this day and age and the one thing I noted and appreciated about the period we waited for the results was that media, especially us local media, had gladly refused to be anybody’s pipeline.

Five things we learnt from the news this week

It’s been long, and with good reason. The five-month sojourn in Kansas City- more boulevards than Paris and more fountains than Rome- was followed by a month of travelling up and around Kenya on the Uongozi tour. It has given us a chance to see and learn much. Thing is, we’re back, and here is what we have learnt from the news this past week.

The road to healing is steep and slippery

I’ll begin with a story from the Uongozi campaign, which has kept me busy over the past four weeks. Ben Githae was performing at Kaptembwa in Nakuru when a young man I had been chatting with beckoned me to get nearer the open-sided flatbed truck.  “Ukitaka kujua watu hapa wamekasirika, angalia hii crowd. Unaona vile wamenyamaza? (If you want to know how angry people are, take a look at this crowd. Do you notice how quiet they are?)” he posed. It was difficult to tell whether the crowd was simply happy to stare and listen at Githae doing his Mabataro or hostile to the language in which he was doing it. Judging crowds is a very imprecise thing to do. But so is perception, which is often the basis upon which one community rises against another. In places such as Kaptembwa and other parts of the Rift Valley where erstwhile peaceful neighbours took up arms against each other, the chances that the elections could be a trigger for violence remains. My young friend was somewhat vindicated by the reactions from PEV victims in Eldoret when International Criminal Court chief prosecutor visited them last Friday. It did not sound like there has been much healing going on. If that delicate task has been left to the National Cohesion and Integration Commission and the perpetually troubled Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission, then they surely have a lot on their hands. Sometimes a foreigner has a better insight into these things than we the natives do so when I got a chance to have a chat with Sara Christine, a Canadian at NMG on an exchange programme, the conversation veered to a story she wrote about the efforts at easing tension between the Luo and the Kalenjin in Nandi Hills. Sara was disturbed by some of the comments on her story, where some suggested she had made up parts of her facts. Yet this is a complete foreigner who finds a good story and writes it passionlessly. Her point of view would be neutral but because we are on a steeply slippery slope, it’s a truth we cannot comfortably confront.

We can’t tell what Bensouda is up to

You might recall watching Louis Moreno Ocampo’s cross-examination of Uhuru Kenyatta in September 2011 on the poor reception local TVs had and wondering, like we were, what the hell he was up to. For a moment there, we wondered what Ocampo was on about and whether he had the stuff needed to convince the judges he had a case. Well, he did have the stuff, he did convince the judges and we have a compelling case to follow come March 2013. I have heard a few people wonder aloud whether Ocampo’s successor Fatou Bensouda has the stuff. This puzzlement comes from her requests (some say they are demands when the doors are shut) for police files, court records, minutes and apologies on behalf of Senor Ocampo. I know very little about the law outside my professional perusal when I’m writing stories but does a prosecutor go after more evidence once the judges are satisfied that the suspect has a case to answer? Like you, I shrug, and wait.

It’s hard to be certain as to the how and the exact when of the General Election

Thanks to the courts, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission have determined the when of the General Election. But because a greedy man never has enough, we are still stuck as to the how we shall determine who is to vote in that election. All elections in the history of political reporting are crucial, critical, important and a race between two thoroughbreds even when we know otherwise. But even with the Damocles’ Sword of the PEV hanging over our heads, IEBC still made it look like buying Biometric Voter Registration kits is the equivalent of putting together Curiosity. They forced the largely inefficient hand of the central government bureaucracy and ended up giving us headlines from Sunday through Friday that largely played around the theme of an unending series of bungling and inefficiency. On Thursday, as they signed yet another bloated loan, IEBC chairman Issack Hassan declared that we could still go the manual way. Even before one of the BVR transporters is carried off by a crocodile on Tana River, the chairman has already declared on The Bench that his is a lonely, stressful and thankless job. He should have a long chat with one Samuel Kivuitu. In the meantime, we cannot with any certainty say when the elections will be.

It’s not just about the chiefs

The last time chiefs were in the news, one of them from Nakuru was surprising the world- mostly the international press- by using Twitter to pass messages to the people in his jurisdiction. Over the past three weeks, we have seen more and more them abandon their duties-catching up with the chang’aa distillers and spying on the local criminal gang- to take to the streets. These humblest of civil servants are worried that the new order might not accommodate them, and they could have to follow Provincial Commissioners out. I happened to have been handed the task of finding out exactly where they fall in the county government structure. The transitional provisions in the Constitution and the County Governments Act are quite clear; the Provincial Administration ought to have been restructured by August 2015 and they will automatically transition into the county governments after March 4, 2013. Whenever such a situation arises, reporters turn to some more informed people for education. Kinuthia Wamwangi, who heads the Transition Authority, was patient as he explained his point of view. It made sense and the result is that Parliament will soon be asked to amend the County Government Act so that chiefs can continue to work in the new order but in a system in which the county administration is distinct but interdependent with the national government. Plenty of legal and Government speak, right? Wamwangi did say something useful, though; “These fellows are being a nuisance. How come their seniors the District Officers and District Commissioners are not protesting? Are they not part of the Provincial Administration?”

Ah, this silly season

If you haven’t, you should read a story on Page 15 of the Sunday Nation. It basically says that William Ruto managed to avoid meeting or being seen in public with Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka. The VIP waiting area at Wilson Airport is pretty small and for the two of them not to have had a chance to chat or have a cup of tea, one would have needed to practically hide from the other. Why, when both of them have met before, and shaken hands and posed for photos on the steps of the Norfolk? Because it is the silly season, and we are not even at half time.

Vigilance, dry hands, leadership and five more things we learnt from Somalia

There has been a necessarily long break here. We returned to Somalia, to the busy Central Sector, and have been busy filing some stories since we returned and doing some preparation along with the rest and recuperation that is necessary. There were many lessons learnt and it was probably among the most rewarding jobs I have done (so far this year). As usual, there were lessons learnt  and we continue the tradition of this here blog and discuss them here below. Enough. Kindly read on.

Leadership and discipline are critical 

One morning about two weeks ago, one of the soldiers in the base at Tabda in Southern Somalia rushed to the tent under which the officers and the commander sit and asked for permission to drive into the village there.

There was an emergency. A Transitional Federal Government soldier had shot himself and needed to be ferried to the base for treatment by the Kenya Defence Forces stationed there.

The victim was a boy who had caught our attention during a tour of the settlement. “Ask him how old he is,” I had told the soldier who was translating for us.

“He says he is 19,” the soldier replied and then echoed our doubts that he was anything more than 14.

There have been many migrations in Somalia over the two decades of infamous instability.

The soldier-boy had had no formal education, was probably not from Tabda and could not tell us his correct age, afraid that he could be rid of the gun and the authority he has as one of the policemen there if he was found out to be too young.

As fate would have it, he was the one who had an entry wound in his upper left thigh, a small smooth round hole three times smaller than the exit wound in his buttock.

He had somehow shown that he was capable of injuring himself.

“Is he the same fellow who keeps doing the accidental discharges?” the officer in charge asked after the soldier-boy had been brought in.

He was and even the story of how the bullet ended up in his upper left thigh was inconsistent. His hand would have to had been at an incredible angle to reach the trigger and shoot himself.

It was concluded, after all, that he might as well have been shot by a colleague during an argument, and that both had conspired to cover it up to escape punishment.

In disciplined forces such as the KDF, an accidental discharge of one’s weapon can cost you your job.

Not so the Somalia National Army, the Ras Kamboni Brigade or the other forces that form the Transitional Federal Government forces.

One of the youngest people you will ever see in uniform and carrying around a dangerous weapon is Abdikadir, who does not need to lie about his age because he looks it.

Standing at about four and a half feet, all of his clothes were two sizes too large for his light frame. When he eventually acquired a pair of green trousers, the uniform of the TFG forces, about half was rolled up and they hung loosely.

When he emerged from the chaotic reckless mess his colleagues make wherever they are, Abdikadir told us he is from Kismayu and likes to be where the fighting is.

Facts are rather fluid. Abdikadir could actually be just another truant boy from El Wak in Kenya or from just across the border, we later learnt.

The last time we saw Abdikadir was just after arriving at Belesc Qoogani, where he nodded and smiled at us before melting into the camp where his colleagues were.

That there are such young combatants illustrates the depth of the crisis in Somalia but the TFG is not entirely reliant on boys. There were also some tough battle-hardened guys who looked eager and capable of holding their own in a fight.

They need leadership, though.

One of the decisive battles was fought at Hayo, a centre halfway between Belec Qoogani and Afmadow. The TFG had had control of it for some time and frequently repelled Al Shabaab when they attacked.

Euphoric after one such successful defence, the soldiers left the trenches and practically ran after the fleeing enemy. Al Shabaab simply reorganised, cut a route back and re-occupied the centre.

A more disciplined force would have known that it is vital that you never leave your defence positions.

War is not a movie

I had somehow gotten into the last Armoured Personnel Carrier on a re-supply convoy to Belesc Qoogani and also managed to secure a seat right next to the door. As we arrived at the trading centre, there was some confusion.

Some soldiers dismounted and I followed, assuming that it was safe as I had noticed the mobile phone mast and the surrounding houses and heard no shooting or shouting of orders. But heading towards the front, I noticed that the soldiers who had dismounted before were taking cover.

I hurried back to the vehicle, shaken. Nyataya was in one of the lead APCs and he later told me they had gone chasing after the attackers, the man with the mounted gun firing into the bushes as some attackers fled.

Among the criticisms I have heard from not less than experienced journalists is that there are no shots of real action, that there are no photographs of combatants firing at each other or others that have been killed.

They also lament that even when KDF claims to have killed some Al Shabaab militants, there are no photographs or video shots of the dead as evidence- they forget that no self-0respecting newspaper publishes photographs of corpses.

When I told him about mortars and RPGs, a colleague insisted there has been no “real action”, apparently unaware that if a mortar was to drop on the ground next to where he spins in his comfortable seat, there would be little solids to place in a coffin.

The lament speaks to a genuine desire to get some solid evidence that there is some fighting going on, and the soldiers are not on holiday in Somalia. Tabda would not make it to a list of joliday destinations anyway.

There is a hot wind that can get so strong it lifts a tent off its supports and slams it into a tree.

Vigilance and dry hands could work

It has been 14 years since the bomb blast at the United States Embassy where Kenya suffered its biggest losses of life due to terrorism.

I write this about 24 hours after another attack near a busy bus stop in Nairobi, with reports that the number of deaths increased to six today.

With Kenya’s strategic importance to everybody that has an interest, the threat will perhaps never go away. It should mean that our vigilance should similarly never flag.

Speaking to the soldiers in Somalia, I got the impression that things would be better if the provincial administration and the police had done their job.

Liboi and other towns near the border with Somalia were the entry points for all manner of contraband originating from the port of Kismayu. Every administrator in those towns knew what was going on. Ditto the policemen who manned the border points.

Father Major George Makau, the Catholic chaplain I wrote about, remembered slapping a policeman very hard one day.

They had been waiting in the bush for smugglers bringing the goods across the border. The mission was to arrest them. The policeman was however in contact with the smugglers, assisting them to avoid the very ambush he was part of.

Fr Makau’s was not the only story and sugar was not the only thing that crossed the border.

Rest assured the administrators and the police who oversaw these activities are richer than they were before their postings, and they know very well the cost of cement has gone up and it takes a lot of manpower and ballast to complete a slab.

Canned beef is not nice beef

I was working on a story on the Kenya Meat Commission in June 2009 when an employee narrated a story I found interesting.

KMC shut its main abbatoir at Athi River in 1991 at the height of the economic downturn overseen by the government of Daniel arap Moi.  It was revived in 2006 and the fellow I was talking to was a young graduate who must have been in primary school when the place was shut down. He told me that when the place was opened up in 2006, there were cans of corned beef that had stayed frozen there for the 15 years.

The beef that goes into the cans is never that which would have found better market at your local butcher or behind the glass cases in the supermarkets. It is usually from those cows that are so malnourished they have no juicy parts left or stripped off the bones that cannot be sliced cleanly through and put on display so you buy them for the bone marrow. It is, in short, never the best meat and that’s perhaps the reason they salt it too much.

In the days at Tabda when the local supplier of cattle for slaughter was late, the cooks served the corned beef.

There were days when nobody touched it.

Those who imagine that beef coming from a tin is nice ought to be given that stuff for a week. They would never touch it again.

War is a bad thing to have

I have translated that directly from something my dad says whenever we talk about conflicts. He is part of the generation that were kids growing up when the state of emergency was declared and the Brits went about looking for the Maumau with the help of the cursed collaborators.

He is part of a generation that hates the cursed collaborating home guards with a passion he has passed on to me.

My dad is also part of the generation that were young fathers and mothers working hard to educate their kids when a bunch of soldiers at the Kenya Air Force staged a coup. He has never told us the story but we have been told as he lay under a vehicle in a street in Nairobi, the policemen who had advised him to drop to the ground dropped dead beside him, shot.

He tells me that “Gutiri kindu kiuru ta mbara”.  There is nothing as bad as war.

Nowadays, I don’t like it when the neighbour’s househelp bangs the buckets too hard. They make a sound like a child’s version of the loud explosions we used to hear at Tabda.

I could never get used to that.