Election rigging that sparked off the conflagration in Kenya

It was rigging that sparked off conflagration

By Patrick Okeyo

Those politicians who are saying that the ODM pre-planned violence are misleading Kenyans. Logically, the opposition was planning to form a government because they expected to win Violence was pre-planned by rigging elections.

The opposition side doesn’t command police, guns or military to use to kill. The violence was the outcome of rigging. But lets delve into a little bit of background. The colonialists settled, among other places, in Rift valley’s fertile land after displacing the native populations.

When they left the founding father of this nation Mzee Jomo Kenyatta mishandled the land issue. Instead of restoring landownership to the original owners, he instead apportioned the same to people who were not natives of Rift Valley.

Kenyatta may not have necessarily had bad intentions but the end result is that settlers from Central Province inherited land that belonged to some other people. But there was also gluttony. Huge tracts of land were apportioned by only a handful of families.

Those who deny that this is the genesis of the land crisis in Rift Valley are burying their heads in sand, The current situation exploded because both the Moi and Kibaki governments opted to gloss over the land issue and even where there were clear pointers that a conflagration was in the horizon chose to look the other way. Kenyans are doomed if they continue to argue that anybody can buy land and settle anywhere.

Yes in theory this is applicable but in the context of Kenya where resource distribution has been far from equitable, there is raging bitterness, which clouds such ideals as owning property anywhere. Kalenjins in Rift Valley feel that their land was given to the Kikuyu. Passions were high as were the stakes in the December elections. Rift Valley residents had invested hope in ODM victory and with change promised saw the prospects of Raila Odinga rule as providing a solution.

When the elections were instead rigged, something snapped. The account of planned attacks is an illusion being peddled by people who are groping for answers to what they know very well. There were high expectations of land reform policy but with ECK controversially declaring Kibaki the winner, the fuse, which had been the land question, blew. People in the Rift Valley saw Kibaki as least likely to reform land policy.

The pent up frustrations found vent in the rigged poll. This is not to justify not to justify the horror of, among others, setting women and children ablaze as they took sanctuary inside a church or burning 14 families locked up in a residential estate in Naivasha as witnessed recently. If President Kibaki finds it easier to buy the explanation of opposition manipulating the passions of people in the Rift Valley as the most plausible cause of the blood-letting then we are far from real solutions.

He can build a police station in every home but that will not restore the mutual respect that neighbours should have for each other. In any case if the fleeing communities are forced back to land where they have been uprooted without specific issues being addressed then he will only be postponing the next round of blood-letting.

During President Moi’s reign, he avoided tackling the land problem and instead found other means to restrain Kalenjins from pressing the land issue by giving them (Kalenjins) certain goodies and ensuring amenities and jobs in civil service as a quid pro quo to avoid confronting the Kikuyu community about land. It all amounted to postponing tackling the real problem. Land reform can no longer be postponed.

There are people and communities in Rift valley and Coast who are either squatters or were displaced. Unfortunately, there are few families who own huge tracts of land. Is this contradiction too difficult to see? One is bound to pity the Kikuyu peasants who had been uprooted from Central and today bear the brunt of hostilities.

Those who took their land from the departing White settlers are culpable and should not point fingers at Kalenjins. Legitimacy of land ownership must be addressed. Hundreds of people have lost lives and property. The government must step in and address the root causes of the explosion.