The Court has refused to stop maandamano as requested by Kenya Kwanza through surrogate petitioner Martin Gitau. Tukutane Wednesday, Thursday na Friday, Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna said.
A businessman, Martin Gitau through Lawyer Adrian Kamotho, had moved to court seeking to stop the mass protests announced by Azimio Coalition leader Raila Odinga.
Justice Lawrence Mugambi directed that the application and petition be filed in the next three days and responses within ten days and set the hearing date for July 21 for further directions.
Incidentally, that is the same lawyer Adrian Kamotho part of the team defending the illegal 50 CAS appointments which they lost.
Ruto created a mess for himself and now they are stuck deep in there. Ruto went nuts declaring a public war against Raila Odinga and the Azimio leaders and the big man told Kenyans that he will personally stop the proposed Azimio rallies starting this Wednesday. “Not under my watch” Ruto loudly threatened and then he realized he has no powers to stop rallies by Kenyans anywhere in the country. Our constitution and our laws protect such activities and in fact right now even the United Nations (UN) leadership has asked the Kenya government not to attack protestors as happened last week on July 7, 2023.
So Ruto is now in panic after realizing that the Azimio rallies are going on as planned and all the noise from him and his KK gang are only making the rallies more popular and now people really want to come out there and let Ruto know that he will not control them with terror and fear.
Since Ruto’s outbursts against the rallies Ruto and KK are in sheer desperation trying to invent a scheme to stop the rallies. Now they have failed in the courts we all know what their next plan is going to be. Ruto spent the entire weekend holed up with his warriors at State House trying to cook up ways of killing the Kenya constitution which allows the citizens the rights to protest.
So far the emerging plan which should alarm every Kenyan is that the Ruto mob with their militias will descend on the demonstrators to show that they support Ruto and teach those Azimio demonstrators a lesson. Kenyans know how that works. We all saw the ruthless street wars and massacres in 2007/8 Post Election Violence.
It all started when political thugs rounded up a group and churchgoers in Kiambaa Church and locked the church doors before setting the church building on fire and burning everyone in there to death. It was a horrific massacre and within minutes after that, the whole country was on fire and it very quickly took a tribal dimension and it was one tribe killing the other and the nightmare went on for months until the international community intervened to restore peace.
And that peace process in Kenya came about because the leaders on both sides of the conflicts agreed to come together because the interests of the country were bigger than their personal interests and egos. Do we have that kind of leadership in Kenya today? The country will soon find out. But we all remember the horrors of the 2007/8 Post Election Violence and how it evolved and was later resolved in a few months.
Here is a summary about that tragic time from Times magazine.
On a clear, sunny afternoon this May, 16 months after the nation erupted in a tribal bloodbath, Kenya buried the last of its dead. The violence in early 2008 claimed 1,133 lives and displaced 350,000. Its terrible climax came on New Year’s Day in the largely Kikuyu village of Kiambaa in the northern Rift Valley, when a Kalenjin mob surrounded a tiny village church where a few hundred people were sheltering, freed those who gave up cell phones or money or sex, closed the doors, heaped mattresses and dry maize leaves against them and set them alight.
Thirty-eight people were burned alive. It took scientists at the morgue in nearby Eldoret more than a year to separate the remains. But while DNA tests could distinguish body parts and even piles of dust, they could not name them.
At a mass burial on May 14 beside the scorched earth where the church once stood, 18 of the coffins were pasted with strips of white tape on which was written UN ELD — for Unknown, Eldoret — and a number to distinguish them from each other. Trinkets, scraps of clothes and, in one case, a wheelchair had identified the other 20 victims.
Right now Kenyans look with shock at the Shakahola massacres and everybody is asking how did this happen and where were Kenyan police.
The 403 dead bodies so far found in Shakahola are just a quarter of the 2007/8 killings during which time also close to half a million people were displaced many of them forever. Does Ruto want to take Kenya back there?
If William Ruto sends his militia to join the police in attacking and killing Kenyans engaged in their peaceful demonstrations it will be a street warfare and we all know where that ends as they can see it up there in Kiambaa.
Dozens of Kenyans mainly young people have already been killed by the Ruto police during the demos and if Ruto and his KK group had any common sense and basic decency as human beings they should be working on how let he demos go on without police shooting people and how to address the real issues behind the demos.
Trying to send mobs of his own so-called supporters to join the police in attacking these people is a declaration of war against Kenyans. It would have terrible consequences and real nightmare is that once those kinds of thing start you can’t stop them and they get a life of their own. If that is what Ruto wants for Kenya he is on the right path to get there.
Here is the solution. If Ruto is angry and jealous that Raila, Kalonzo, and others are having their supporters all over the streets and Ruto want to bring his mob to the streets there is a plan for that on the ground already.
Ruto can let Raila and Azimio take Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays for their anti-Ruto rallies and then Ruto and his crowds can take Mondays and Tuesdays as their days to come out and show support for Ruto. The police will then protect everybody in those rallies and the two groups don’t meet at all and the mob war in the streets can be avoided altogether.
The real issues William Ruto should be paying attention to is how to address the concerns that Azimio and others have put on the ground and see how best to come up with solutions. The good news there is that a lot of Kenyans from all walks of life as well the international community want Kenya to avoid total war a by the Ruto police and they are raising ideas on how to do that.
Here is Nyeri Archbishop Anthony Muheria who has called for a sane and peaceful style of leadership which he terms crucial in handling the current state of the nation.
Speaking in an interview on Citizen’s Sunday Live on July 17, he urged leaders to be calmer in handling issues instead of using threats to communicate.
“We need to recover our humanity. Leadership needs to be humane, empathetic and compassionate. Currently, the leader is arrogant, rough, insulting and imposing. I think we are going to the wrong kind of leadership,” he said.
He adds that violence, hatred and threats will not help in solving problems. Instead, political leaders should hold conversations on how to come up with permanent solutions, as advised by religious leaders.
If bipartisan talks take place, Muheria advises that they should focus on the plight of the poor. In as much as taxes are good for the country as a whole, the effect they have on the poor should be discussed.
“I think we need to break it down to how what we are doing is hurting Kenyans especially the ones in the lower bracket. The talk should also involve ways of reforming so that we don’t end up here.”
So Kenyans are looking for solutions to address the root cause of the chaos in the country and Ruto is holding meetings at State House so they can strategize on how to create more police violence and militia attacks on demonstrators. Kenyans will not accept state violence against them for demanding a decent living in their homes and in their country.
In the meantime the Ruto government has withdrawn state security from Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka. Everybody knows what happens after that. It is bullying time with live bullet shots right into their cars. That has happened twice now.
The government has withdrawn security attached to Azimio La Umoja Party leader Raila Odinga ahead of his planned anti-government protests starting Wednesday this week.
Security withdrawn includes more than 10 police officers that protect him on his daily duties as well as those guarding his homes in Nairobi, Kisumu and Siaya.
Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka and more than 50 Azimio MPs have also had their security withdrawn by the State.
Odinga had on Sunday raised concerns over claims that the government has hatched a plot to harm the Azimio leaders when they lead the demos this week.
In a tweet Monday evening Odinga posted: “Starting on Wednesday, be ready for the game-changing maandamano. Tumechoka.”
The worst thing for Ruto is that he would like his government to arrest Raila and Kalonzo to show them who is in power and to crash this maandamano thing completely.
The nightmare there is that if Ruto arrests those opposition leaders tomorrow to stop the Wednesday rallies there would be millions of Kenyans in the streets ready for a fight with Ruto to free those patriots and the country. So what now for Ruto?
That is what a dead end looks like. Ruto was looking for it and he got there now. Deal with it dude. Will you?
