MUNGIKI POLITICS IN KENYA

The transitional period that saw Moi vacate the office of power and Kibaki take the mantle was hailed as the best opportunity to bring Kenya to a crime free country.The previous era had been described by many a political analysts as the most corrupt, nepotist and gangsteric regime in East Africa. True, there was improvement at the beginning of the Kibaki era. The diaspora who had feared returning home because of lawlessness and insecurity gained confidence in this government and started planning for their safe return. We saw the likes of Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Koigi packing their backs and cutting their dreadlocks respectively for the love of their homeland. Well, that was a spectacular moment to behold not only for them but also for their families and Kenya as a whole.

However come another election year, probably another transition, and things are back to the bad old days. I may be talking a research paper based on statistical probabilities here when i say that the Mungiki menace has become the no.1 killer disease worse than even AIDS, but at least for anyone suffering from the dreaded virus is sure and actually do long for a brighter day tomorrow morning when he wakes up to read my article. For every other ordinary Kenyan relying on public transport in most parts of Nairobi and central Kenya, the only surety he has for his safety is the fact that today it was another person killed and not him. His only prayer is that maybe tomorrow if there be another dead person, let that name be none other than his. He cannot help but think that someday his turn will reach.

That several MPs, ten of them for that matter, are involved in promoting Mungikiism is nothing to wonder about. It is a matter of common knowledge that nobody can run a pseudo-government in any democratic setup without the active support, however remote, from the well connected individuals in the mainstream of power. The mafia dons that our MPs are is something that the government has contented itself with since the days of Moi.
The intentions of keeping Mungiki alive especially during an election year is not something of a guesswork. These disgruntled politicians need to survive and to do so they involve in reigning terror amongst the voters with a view to skew election results. They want to make it so difficult for people from opposition stronghold to come out and vote.

The intention of the government in not flushing out these people is also to be questioned. the internal security minister's confession of the involvement of these MPs tells a tale of the fact that these people are known and had there been any political will they would have faced justice. However, this government is so low on incumbency ratings that it is willing to rely on the so called"protection" from these MPs and their Mungiki followers. If the security of Kenyans was something worth their time at Muthaiga Golf Club, they would have rounded up all the members of this dreaded sect and sent them to the gallows.It is for the obvious political reasons that the government does not want to act tough on them; they need to win an election, and elections in Kenya are not won through the ballots but by terrorism and corruption. Thus, the whole Mungiki episode comes to what i would call the game of musical terror ( read chairs) whereby to retain power at all cost, desperate and successive regimes in Kenya have employed the services of mafia dons to "campaign" for them using such tools as forcible circumcision, collecting plying fees for Matatus and protection fees from traders, kidnappings, killings and such other forms of intimidation.