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This Is Why President Uhuru Cancelled The Makongeni, Ngoliba Visit.


President Uhuru Kenyatta acknowledges cheers from enthusiastic supporters at Gatitu Junction in Thika where he had visited to urge them to register as voters.
The residents of Makongeni Estate, Gatuanyaga and Ngoliba Wards in Thika Town Constituency on Friday went home a dejected lot after the much anticipated visit by His Excellency President Uhuru Kenyatta was prematurely cut short and diverted elsewhere. This was after ugly incidents that were perpetuated by local politicians.

An earlier schedule to the area was early morning changed to accommodate other very urgent official duties, prompting the president to start the Kiambu County visit at Gathage to Kiganjo in Ruiru Sub-County, then proceed to Gatundu, Mangu, Thika, Makongeni, Juja and wind up his tour in Githurai. His Ngoliba visit was differed due to time factor.

What agitated the people was the cancellation of the Makongeni visit where thousands of curious supporters braved the scorching sun to meet their president.

Why the cancellation?
Sources privy to us say that the president was very infuriated by the manner in which some Thika leaders organised some youth to shout down each other in a battle of supremacy with the aim of catching the president’s eye.

Even though the drama to castigate a section of Kiambu leaders started way back in Ruiru Town, President Uhuru got infuriated at the Gatitu Junction after supporters of a certain Thika Town politician shamelessly displayed their candidate’s banners to the president’s view and drowned his voice as he was addressing the mammoth crowd that had gathered to hear him. Several attempts by the president to cool off this temper yielded no fruits but instead worsened as supporters of other candidates confronted this group.

It was at this juncture that President Uhuru lost his cool and openly blasted these youth.

“Angalia hawa vijana wanapigana juu ya viongozi na labda hata baada ya kuwapigia kura hamtawaona tena. Mkiumia mnafikiri hao viongozi wanajali? Waaah! Jameni wacheni kelele. Tarorai gukiga! Mureciria wanyonia banner niyo iguguthura? Wona ndamiona kana njage kumiona gatiri na thina. Ati gutwike ati muroka kunegena haha uhoro wa banner. Bure nyinyi! Ujinga!” retorted Uhuru.

(Look at these youth fighting over leaders who may be will dessert them immediately after the elections. If you hurt each other here, do you think that these leaders will give a damn? Please stop making noise! Just look at these fools! Do you think that by showing me that banner it will translate to votes? Whether I see it or not that doesn’t make any difference. How do you dare come here to fight over a banner? Very useless fellows! This is stupidity!)

He pleaded with the youth not to allow themselves to be misused by politicians in the name of soliciting votes.

The situation in Makongeni.
Intelligence reports at the time indicated that the situation in Makongeni was very volatile as different politicians had organised a political match ups for a similar reason, probably prompting the president to cut short his Thika visit without notice.

Youth donned in campaign materials bearing the images or names of particular candidates were littered all over Makongeni area shouting each other down. The situation in mid-morning and early afternoon erupted into fights as well-known supporters of one politician attacked and stoned convoys and motorcade belonging to their rivals.

In one incident, a vehicle belonging to Thika Town aspirant Patrick Wainaina had its windows smashed and a stone badly injuring one lady supporter who was in the vehicle. Another of his supporters was attacked with a knife which nearly chopped off his finger.

When we caught up with Wainaina, he said that the incident was very unfortunate as this was not the right way to win votes for the president nor ensure development was achieved in the constituency.

“They attacked my convoy and injured several people. One lady is now nursing a very serious wound that has needed to get six stitches. If we allow hooliganism to creep into our politics, we will scare away investment as no one will be comfortable enough to invest in an insecure environment,” said Wainaina.

He said that it was very wrong for politicians to politicise the voter registration exercise as it had everything to do with the future of the people.

“This month has been set aside for voter registration and not for politics. The most important thing now is for politicians and other leaders to join hands and mobilise all the unregistered voters at the grassroots to get out and register. To my fellow politicians, mudslinging and name calling will not translate into votes. Let’s tell ‘Wanjiku’ what agenda we have for her,” he said.

He pointed out that his priority at the moment was the re-election of the president for a second term as this will guarantee the people of Kenya more development.

He lamented over the low voter registration turn out in Thika Town Constituency saying that the data from the IEBC showed that the performance was below par.

“We feel honoured to host the president into this county and we hope that his visit will boost the exercise to register more voters. It is worrying that we have about 50,000 people in Thika Town Constituency who have ID cards but have not yet registered as voters. As at yesterday, only about 10,000 had registered as voters. 
 We therefore need to work extra hard to ensure that we beat our target in the next two weeks. It is our collective responsibility as the people of Thika to ensure all potential voters get registered within this stipulated time,” concluded Wainaina.

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