See the chaotic scenes as Kenya elects new president in 2007
January 26, 2012
Tensions between the Kikuyu and the Kikuyus are running high, and the old order is in danger, writes Andrew Bantemu.
From his house in Mombasa, Kenya’s newest African Union ambassador, Joseph Ole Lenku, talks about politics.
I am from Kenya and I have spent the last four months living in Mombasa. It is where many Kenyans think they can do things to stop politics being corrupted.
I will never forget hearing the radio last July when the president of Kenya, Mwai Kibaki, was elected. It was the worst thing I had heard since the Second World War.
I had been living in a village, a poor one, so it was strange to hear of a wealthy president, who was about to be elected for the third time. There were demonstrations and there was trouble with the police.
It was not easy for me to get home to tell my wife of the problems in our village. I had been elected to the Ambassadorial position, and my wife to the National Assembly, so I would not have been able to do anything about it.
When I arrived in Mombasa it was late at night. I parked my car at the entrance to the city and set off walking. I walked through the city looking at the lights of the people who I am going to meet tomorrow. I went to a place called the N’Dza market.
A lot of the people from my village have come to Mombasa because they are tired of going down the road to work. They are frustrated by the amount of money that they have to go through in order to feed their children.
They come to Mombasa and they work to feed their children. A lot of these people did not even have enough to eat before I moved here. It’s just that they have the ambition to become politicians and they have come to Mombasa and are working to become politicians.
I sat down at a house that was lit up and people came to me and began to tell me how