I have been struggling to write this since morning. I am still unsure how to approach it even as I type these thoughts out.
If you know me, you'd be aware that politics are the one thing I can't bring myself to put down in writing. Probably because I grew up in a not so democratic democratic country or simply because politics is a very dirty and unsafe game where I come from. Either way, I am never interested.
Today is an expection. A man who ruled over my country for 24 years with an iron fist passed away earlier today. The official age is 95 years of age but it is believed that he was over 105 years.
Daniel Toroitich arap Moi was the second President of the republic of Kenya who became the president after the death of the first president of Kenya who was Mzee Jomo Kenyatta.
After Kenyatta sold out farms to white settlers over greed, started hunting down elephants and rhinos for illegal ivory trade, gambling public land in hectares and killing a few key liberators, he passed the baton to Moi from his grave.
A coup attempt after only three years in power should give you an idea of what kind of a president Moi was. Everyone wanted him out.
Kenyatta's death in 1978 had left behind a shaky government and unwilling citizens for the then vice president Daniel Moi. The 1982 coup attempt reaffirmed that to him and him being the dictator he was, he opened up torture chambers in the middle of the CBD.
Nyayo House still stands but the chambers were closed down. It was nicknamed after him. People were tortured and killed in broad daylight for defying his authority. He killed so many patriotic men and women, imprisoned and poisoned those he couldn't.
In ten days this month alone, we will be in remembrance of one Dr. Robert Ouko who was a serving foreign minister when Moi murdered him in February 1990. The 10,000 innocent Kenyan lives he butchered at the Wagalla Massacre on 10th February in 1984. When the international community asked, he denied it claiming that only 57 people were killed! Fucked up... I know :(
This is not including the 20,000 people and soldiers he wiped out after that coup attempt in 82. Or the millions of people he knowingly dosed with systemic tribalism which translated to post election violence since day one of multi parties in 1992. The innocent lives that have ended up open graves for such are too many and often too go properly uncounted for which makes me sick.
And now he is dead without paying for any of it. All those lives he singlehandedly destroyed and zero punishment. Why do I feel like he won't find peace wherever he's going? If I were in charge of that, he'd never find it. I am not sorry that he is dead but I hate the fact that he got to fuck up so many people's lives then lived a high end life and died without ever being answerable!!!
From Facebook.
Breaths... Crawling back to my poetry platform now. Politics are heavy to even put down.
BQ.