This Is Why President Uhuru Cancelled The Makongeni, Ngoliba Visit.
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| President Uhuru Kenyatta acknowledges cheers from enthusiastic supporters at Gatitu Junction in Thika where he had visited to urge them to register as voters. |
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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