For an entire week in 2007 I drove from my house off Ngong Road, to Kenyatta International Conference Centre, the national tallying centre, to cover the General Elections.
The tension kept rising as the electoral clock ticked closer to December 27, 2007 the D-Day. Two days after Kenyans went to the polls and Samuel Kivuitu, the chairman of the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) and his team seemed to have been dilly dallying in announcing the Presidential results.
My daughter, Terry, asked me a question that I feared to answer that morning at 7am. "Daddy, what will happen today after the Presidential results are announced?" After hesitating, seriously pondering and weighing my words, I told her without blinking an eye: "I don't know, but I fear that our country will never be the same again. To be honest, I fear that we are likely to have a civil war!"
I then entered my car and drove to Nation Centre in Nairobi's Central Business District, where I parked it and walked through the empty streets to KICC to cover the news of the day and the volatile and explosive election campaigns. By then, the supporters of the two main contestants and their party officials had been openly beating the drum beats of war.
The ECK chairman, Kivuitu, and his team mandated by the Constitution to organise, conduct and release results for civic, Parliamentary and presidential elections from all the eight provinces in the country seemed immune to the explosive environment and political heat the delay was causing.
The tough-talking ECK boss had earlier granted me an exclusive interview, as Nation Media Group Senior Parliamentary Reporter, stating that he too was unhappy and uncomfortable with the war drums being beaten by the politicians and their supporters.
Said Kivuitu: “If they continue beating the drums of war, they must know that when Kenya burns, we will all burn.... if this continues, I might be forced to request the Kenya Navy to allocate a naval ship to me and my fellow commissioners to use in the high seas to announce the presidential results!" Talk about being a prophet of doom, that is what followed 48 hours later.
The eight provinces then were Nairobi, Rift Valley, Central, Eastern, North Eastern, Coast, Western and Nyanza, which had been balkanized into tribal fiefdoms by politicians and their respective political parties, The two protagonists were President Mwai Kibaki of Party of National Unity (PNU), who was seeking a second five-year term, and Langata MP and former Prime Minister, Raila Odinga, of Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).
Those polls were the fifth that I was covering in the country since being employed as a reporter by NMG on November 15, 1985 after graduation from University of Arizona in Tucson, United States of America. The others were in 2002, 1997, 1992 and the infamous mlolongo (que-voting) in 1987. The latter was the country's worst rigged elections ever where a candidate stood on a queue carrying placards with their portrait and name on it as their supporters stood behind him or her in what Moi claimed was: "African open democracy!"
The 2002 polls pitted former Vice-President Kibaki of National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) against former Cabinet Minister Uhuru Kenyatta of Kanu, was the most peaceful, lively, interesting and enjoyable to cover thanks to the expansion of the political space and focus on issues and not personalities, ethnicity partisanship.
Famous gospel artist Angela Chibalonza was among those who entertained NARC leaders and supporters at Uhuru Park rally which I covered and enjoyed. It was also the first General Election without President Daniel arap Moi on the ballot having served for 24 years and after the expiry of his mandatory two five-year constitutional term limit.
In 1997, I covered the General Election as the Kisumu Nation Bureau Chief, in Nyanza, Western and parts of Rift Valley provinces. In that poll, Moi faced his first challenger ever for the Baringo Central Parliamentary seat, a lawyer Juma Kiplenge, who however pulled out under pressure on the eve of the voting. He was later enlisted as one of Moi's lawyers.
Moi's opponents in 1997 presidential race were Kibaki, Raila and Kitui Central MP, Charity Ngilu among others.
In 1992, I covered the first polls after the re-introduction of multi-party politics in the country where President Moi faced the stiffest opposition in his entire political career. They were three formidable presidential candidates who lost to Moi because they failed to unite. They were former Vice-Presidents Jaramogi Oginga Odinga (FORD Kenya) and Kibaki (Democratic Party) and former Cabinet Minister Kenneth Matiba (FORD Asili). Their total votes were more than what Moi had garnered.
Two petitions were filed by Ford Kenya and Ford Asili, but they were thrown out on technicalities. One of the foreign judges who allowed Matiba’s petition to be heard, had his work permit withdrawn and deported to his home country.
In the petitions, Kanu was accused of rigging the elections, blocking opposition supporters from registering and voting for candidates of their choice through land clashes; A government lorry-load of stamped and stuffed ballot papers was discovered overturned in an accident and rolled over at the Globe roundabout at dawn enroute to National Youth Service headquarters on Thika Highway, a day after ECK had declared Moi as the victor.
Fast forward to 2007
In 2007, our News Editor, Eric Shimoli, assigned me to cover the ECK national tallying centre together with Macharia Gaitho and Bernard Namunane and several photographers.
On the first day of the assignment, I smelt a rat. The overhead giant electronic screens which we had been assured would be used to screen the results as they were received from the 220 constituencies across the country was faulty. It blinked; now you see it now you don't.
When we asked the ECK to explain, he dismissed it as "a small technical hitch" and directed his Information Technology (IT) team to deal with it as soon as possible. The next smoke was noticed in the body language of the ECK boss and his fellow commissioners as they trooped in the press lounge every two to three hours to announce results of the civic and Parliamentary candidates then read the total tally of all the presidential candidates.
If one had his or her blindfolds on and entered that chamber, one would have mistaken it for listening to Kenya Broadcasting Corporations Matangazo ya Vifo (Funeral Announcements) programme. They were so dull, mechanical and without feelings as they read on and on.
The local and international journalists, civil society, party agents, diplomats and election observers watched in disbelief as the electronic boards suddenly failed after starting to show the ODM candidate was neck to neck with his PNU rival.
The same story was shared by our media colleagues in our respective media houses where their parallel tally centres 'had a glitch.' Back in their respective homes, pubs and social centres across the country, viewers were divided, just like the country. Those supporting the Opposition relied on NTV while those for President Kibaki switched to Citizen TV and radio as their station of choice on eve and the morning of the delayed announcement.
All was not well
The ECK chairman had also expressed his frustration with his staff, especially those returning and presiding officers from the constituencies some of whom he had accused of: "Delaying, abandoning their stations while others were trying to cook up figures!"
The same fishy story was also shared of media houses' reporters and correspondents who had been paid an allowance and equipped with mobile phones with airtime, but we're nowhere to be seen or reached. Some had switched off their gadgets and gone underground before calling in with the civic, Parliamentary and presidential results to the tallying centres.
Things were getting thick
At 10am. a high-powered team from PNU, made up of Cabinet Ministers, called a press conference at KICC to counter ODM, whose officials had called one at their headquarters in Kilimani area to declare Raila as: " The next President of the Republic of Kenya."
The ODM team included Cabinet Minister Musalia Mudavadi, James Orengo, William Ruto, Henry Kosgei, and Sally Kosgei among others. The PNU team was led by Martha Karua (Constitutional Affairs) who showed the journalist a torn piece of paper with the following figures jotted on it: "5,450,000."
She then told the journalists in finality: "This is the final figure, take it from us, Kibaki has won and Kivuitu will soon announce and declare him the next President of the Republic of Kenya."
As she concluded her brief verbal statement, her PNU colleagues thanked her and clapped. They were Uhuru Kenyatta (Finance), Wetangula (Foreign Affairs) and Musikari Kombo (Local Government).
The mood at KICC and around the country suddenly changed, tension and fear gripped everyone including journalists at the tallying centre. Frantic phone calls were made left right and centre.
The excitement by ODM leaders and supporters in the tallying centre and in the country vanished and turned to anxiety, anger and frustration.
As we waited with baited breath for the announcement, a Kenya National Assembly staff who was assisting ECK in tallying the results, shocked everybody by going public and denouncing the exercise saying: "It is not only a sham, but an illegality that is also unconstitutional. lt is a crying shame to our country's democracy!
He then walked out never to be seen until many months after PEV had ended and former United Nations Secretary General, Koffi Annan, and his African Union supported African Peer Review mediation team came and promoted reconciliation, arbitration and peace between Kibaki and Raila.
To confirm their fears, the ECK called a press conference at 5pm. to announce the results, but changed his mind on seeing the charged mood and crowd. Kivuitu then ordered all the journalists, election observers, diplomats including US Ambassador, and party agents to vacate KICC as armed para-military General Service Unit officers herded us out of the building and the precinct of the then tallest building in the capital city
Civilian Coup
As we retreated to City Hall exit, we were shocked and intimidated by a platoon of armed GSU and riot police surrounding the building as ECK boss made the announcement; which was followed by gun fire, teargas canisters being lobbed in the air as the country faced it's darkest hour.
Just as Martha had predicted, the ECK chairman called a press conference covered exclusively by the national broadcaster, KBC, later in his barricaded office at KICC to declare Kibaki as the victor.
As the country begun to burn in the worst post-elections violence ever witnessed, Kivuitu and fellow commissioners were escorted to State House Nairobi in a guarded convoy where he handed over the certificate and witnessed Kibaki being sworn in at dusk by Chief Justice Evans Gicheru.
From KICC, I walked with fellow colleagues to Nation Centre, traumatized, watching chaos and riots erupt along the streets. After filing my news story and waiting for things to cool down a little, I entered my car and drove home to reunite with my wife, daughter and son.
It was a fond re-union, but the worst was still to come as riots and demonstrations were the order of the day for the next month which claimed over 1,000 men women and children killed and over 600,000 others displaced, especially in Nairobi's slums and parts of the Rift Valley.
According to my village Assistant Chief in Fort Ternan, Muhoroni constituency in Kisumu County: “Moi had telephoned Kibaki during the height of the post-election violence and asked him why he did not learn from him. I taught you to steal from the farms not the granary! Now see what a mess you have caused!"
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