Friday 25th January in Kenya

The international media has largely ignored us today so anyone with any hunger for Kenyan news is probably getting a little desperate.

This is probably because sadly all there is to report is yet more violence, deaths and chaos in our country, and no further news on what is going on with the mediation talks between Kofi Annan and the ODM and PNU parties.

All I know is today Kofi Annan has met with the Chairman of the Electoral Commission (ECK), Samuel Kivuitu to find out his side of the story with regards to the election results as what we’ve had from him is:

“Kibaki is the President”

“Perhaps Kibaki didn’t win the elections, I really don’t know”

And now “Kibaki did win because I said so!”

So that could be a very interesting conversation between the two. I think it’ll probably go something like this;

Kofi Annan: “So Mr. Kivuitu, what really happened with regards to the results of the Presidential elections in December?”

Samuel Kivuitu: “Yes but, No but, Yes but, No but ……..”

Our 9 o’clock news did not enlighten us at all on the subject. But I understand that Annan has promised to stay in the country until the current situation is involved. I do hope he’s brought a rather large wardrobe with him as chances are, he could be here for rather a long time.

As for any word from Kibaki and Raila, we’ve just had the usual;

Kibaki; “I am the President.”, and Raila, “I refuse to recognise Kibaki as the President.”

So, as you can imagine we are going really far fast …er, NOT!

As for the rest of Kenya, it seems Nakuru is the latest town in the Rift Valley to be hit hard with the continuous ethnic violence. Gangs of Kikuyu’s (which is Kibaki’s tribe) have decided they have had quite enough of what they say is the Luo’s (Raila’s tribe) and the Kalenjins (our former President Moi’s tribe), killing their people and now it is their turn to take their revenge and have gone on the rampage.

The police have completely lost control and now the army has been brought in to try and quell the violence in the town and the surrounding areas and the government has imposed a curfew from 7pm this evening to 6am tomorrow morning. It is understood that at least 9 people have died today, as well as at least 30 last night, and hundreds of people have had their homes burnt down and have been chased out of town.

Another town that has had horrific violence overnight is Molo (also up in the Rift Valley region) where they say marauding gangs have killed at least 18 people.

The Human Rights Commission are hitting back on those who they say are responsible for this violence and are investigating all incidents they can. They say they will take anyone they can find to be involved in the ongoing violence to the International Courts. The Chairman of the Kenya National Human rights Commission and various other civil society leaders now have had various death threats against them, and the Chairman of the Commission, Maina Kiai has had to leave the country for his own safety.

One last update – my prediction on those taking each other to court to try and nullify MP elections in various constituencies has come true. There are so far 25 different cases in court as of today, (and that’s not including mine for the “MyGodThat’sALotOfCash” constituency!)

It makes me incredibly sad to say this, but as I see it, we are far from peace.