en-masse once the news finished. There was a certain tension in the air.
Because newspapers are only sold in villages that are perhaps sixty kilometres apart, and since most Kenyans outside Nairobi do not have a television in their own home, campaigning for the referendum was done at monster rallies all over the country. I ventured close enough to observe an Orange rally in Kitui village. On stage were colourful politicians dancing and enrapturing cheering crowds, working those assembled into a frenzy of jumping, singing, and waving leafy branches. It resembled a really colourful and noisy carnival. But there was a counter attraction in town. The local MP, the aptly named Charity Ngilu, who was Kenya’s health minister and was supporting the proposed constitution, organised famine relief food to be distributed at the same time as the rally. So, near where the Orange carnival was in full swing, hundreds upon hundreds were queuing up at the home of nearby chiefs to collect their food, courtesy of the Banana faction.
During the era of President Moi, from 1978 until 2002 (for most of it as a corrupt dictator in a one-party state), Akambas sometimes had their individual voting cards exchanged for famine relief. Famine relief food was also being sold openly in some shops in Kitui village during the height of the famine in late 2005. Some government official had evidently been bought. Notoriously, such corruption is endemic in Africa—at all levels.
Over a drink one evening at Sr. MM’s home, I argued the merits of the proposed constitution with the veteran Akamba MP who had organised the Orange rally. Sr. MM knew him well. I decided to agree with him for two reasons; I did not really know the background history to some of the issues; and I remembered I was technically in the country illegally. I was on a tourist visa and should not have been near Nyumbani or Kitui.
At one monster Banana rally in the weeks leading up to the referendum, near Lake Victoria in western Kenya, four schoolchildren were shot dead by Orange supporters. This incident shook the people of Kenya to the core. The country was pregnant with violence. I had travelled the whole way from Ulster, only to find it was ‘Orangemen’ involved in trouble in Kenya as well. The hanging shadow of tribal war weighed upon the population like a Damocles’ sword about to fall. One incident, even an accident, could tip the country over the brink. We held our breath and mostly stayed indoors.
A bank holiday was declared for the day of the vote. Many people in Kitui took the opportunity to be drunk on moonshine by midday. The result of the referendum was duly declared; the proposed new constitution was heavily defeated. Everyone was anxiously awaiting the reaction of President Kibaki. He addressed the country on television in Swahili that evening. Sr. MM, another Irish missionary and I all listened attentively to him for thirty minutes in Sr. MM’s home.
Eventually she piped up in her melodic tones,
‘Sure, you would think we all understood what he was saying!’
President Kibaki accepted the result against him, and everyone had a party. The legacy of the referendum, though, was a polarised country and a weak government that heretofore had been reforming and popular. The extent of tribal polarisation was apparent in the voting patterns; one Kikuyu constituency had a result of 30,417 Yes to 78 No, whereas a constituency in Luo tribal land near Lake Victoria recorded a vote of 163 Yes to 17,866 No.
Around this time, I remember writing a long email home, in which I described the tense build-up to the referendum. I felt it appropriate to finish it off with a verse of Sean McBride’s well-known song:
Now the time has come that I must go, I bid you all adieu, The open highway calls me back to do these things I do, But when I’m travelling far away, your friendship I’ ll recall, And, please God, some day I’ ll return unto the homes of Donegal.
Before I departed
Because newspapers are only sold in villages that are perhaps sixty kilometres apart, and since most Kenyans outside Nairobi do not have a television in their own home, campaigning for the referendum was done at monster rallies all over the country. I ventured close enough to observe an Orange rally in Kitui village. On stage were colourful politicians dancing and enrapturing cheering crowds, working those assembled into a frenzy of jumping, singing, and waving leafy branches. It resembled a really colourful and noisy carnival. But there was a counter attraction in town. The local MP, the aptly named Charity Ngilu, who was Kenya’s health minister and was supporting the proposed constitution, organised famine relief food to be distributed at the same time as the rally. So, near where the Orange carnival was in full swing, hundreds upon hundreds were queuing up at the home of nearby chiefs to collect their food, courtesy of the Banana faction.
During the era of President Moi, from 1978 until 2002 (for most of it as a corrupt dictator in a one-party state), Akambas sometimes had their individual voting cards exchanged for famine relief. Famine relief food was also being sold openly in some shops in Kitui village during the height of the famine in late 2005. Some government official had evidently been bought. Notoriously, such corruption is endemic in Africa—at all levels.
Over a drink one evening at Sr. MM’s home, I argued the merits of the proposed constitution with the veteran Akamba MP who had organised the Orange rally. Sr. MM knew him well. I decided to agree with him for two reasons; I did not really know the background history to some of the issues; and I remembered I was technically in the country illegally. I was on a tourist visa and should not have been near Nyumbani or Kitui.
At one monster Banana rally in the weeks leading up to the referendum, near Lake Victoria in western Kenya, four schoolchildren were shot dead by Orange supporters. This incident shook the people of Kenya to the core. The country was pregnant with violence. I had travelled the whole way from Ulster, only to find it was ‘Orangemen’ involved in trouble in Kenya as well. The hanging shadow of tribal war weighed upon the population like a Damocles’ sword about to fall. One incident, even an accident, could tip the country over the brink. We held our breath and mostly stayed indoors.
A bank holiday was declared for the day of the vote. Many people in Kitui took the opportunity to be drunk on moonshine by midday. The result of the referendum was duly declared; the proposed new constitution was heavily defeated. Everyone was anxiously awaiting the reaction of President Kibaki. He addressed the country on television in Swahili that evening. Sr. MM, another Irish missionary and I all listened attentively to him for thirty minutes in Sr. MM’s home.
Eventually she piped up in her melodic tones,
‘Sure, you would think we all understood what he was saying!’
President Kibaki accepted the result against him, and everyone had a party. The legacy of the referendum, though, was a polarised country and a weak government that heretofore had been reforming and popular. The extent of tribal polarisation was apparent in the voting patterns; one Kikuyu constituency had a result of 30,417 Yes to 78 No, whereas a constituency in Luo tribal land near Lake Victoria recorded a vote of 163 Yes to 17,866 No.
Around this time, I remember writing a long email home, in which I described the tense build-up to the referendum. I felt it appropriate to finish it off with a verse of Sean McBride’s well-known song:
Now the time has come that I must go, I bid you all adieu, The open highway calls me back to do these things I do, But when I’m travelling far away, your friendship I’ ll recall, And, please God, some day I’ ll return unto the homes of Donegal.
Before I departed
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