MOI THE CONSUMMATE TRIBALIST. I am not in the bandwagon that is falling over themselves to wish MOI a happy birthday and i gave some of the reasons thereof yesterday. And today i offer another. As most of you know, i am never short of a snide remark against tribalists. I saw MOI for the first time when i was aged 9 and a std 5 pupil at Moisbridge Primary School, iby the border of what are now Kakamega and Uasin Gishu Counties. It was in the year 1993 and the local MP, Hon. Apili Wawire, had just decamped Matibas FORD-Asili for KANU thereby triggering a by-election. Those who remember will tell you that soon after the 1992 General Election, Moi and KANU ochestrated defections of several FORD-asili MPs to KANU in a bid to weaken MATIBA while simultaneously shoring up KANUs numbers in Parliament. That is how Jaramogi, and not Matiba, became the official leader of the opposition. But i digress. One fine morning, we reported to school only to be redirected (with little option) to Mabusi shopping centre (about 3 kilometeres away) where Moi was conducting a rally in support of WAWIREs re-election bid. Indeed, there were so many school children in the rally you wondered whether we were meant to vote Wawire to Parliament at our age. And many things were said in that rally and i forgot most of them. But there was one question uttered by Moi which refused to leave my mind. Just before launching into a goodies session, MOI posed ama sipendi waluhya? to which the crowd shouted Unatupenda. I got lost in thoughts. Even at that age, something told me it sounded wrong for a President to profess love for a particular ethnic community- thereby implying hatred for another or others. And that was in the background of ethnic cleansings of 1991/2 which occured in, inter alia, Moisbridge- a few kilometres away. More ethnic cleansings would occur 3 years later in 1997. And the seeds of ethnic hatred continued to find fertile ground so that matters came to a head in 2007/08. The said 2007-08 vioLence found me in the wrong place- and many are the days i would stand to watch houses being torched 3 or so kilometeres away from where i was- and hoping, praying that it wont reach me. I cursed Moi (and a few other fellows whom i wont name today). I still do.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Sep 2014 09:50:51 +0000
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