A country on the brink of tearing apart

Kenya is hurting. Sections of our great nation are aggrieved, while other sections are hanging collective heads in shame. The cohesiveness of our country has been tested. We are a hurting nation. Professional incompetence and negligence on the part of ECK has taken a heavy toll on the emotions of a nation. The emptiness and uncertainty created a vacuum which exposed how short we are of leaders. One lone GSU officer was caught on TV successfully pleading with a group of youths to keep off the streets and allow ECK to do their work. Our rulers went quiet when the country needed them most. It was heartening to see a few civilians and retires like Gen. Sumbweyo, Bethwell Kiplagat, etc come out and appeal for peace on TV. That was a mark of bravery and direction in the face of doubtful outcomes. These are private citizens who took it upon themselves to show direction due to a lacuna created by our mandated leaders’ inaction. It was shameful for shameless people like Mutula Kilonzo to be caught on air bargaining for positions and taking sides when selfish interests should have been postponed for a later and appropriate date. Shame. Carol Mutoko came out to bring together her listeners by deftly side-stepping the directive banning all “live” broadcasts. Between seven and one pm of Monday, she was the only news outlet telling the nation what was going on. She gave her listeners a shoulder to cry on. All the pent-up national emotions of anger, confusion, aghast, betrayal and thankfully hope found a valve through her all-morning vigil. She sounded scared too, and it was therefore a mark of bravery and leadership, to put her self and the station on the line when bigger media houses had been cowed into submission. All call-ins on KISS FM are recorded as a matter of policy and therefore, so she was not affected by the ruling. In the New Year, Carol portrayed leadership by being on air for a full day and preaching the message of peace. KISS FM also developed an advert with the same message for calm and patriotism. Other media houses followed suit in the course of the day. By Wednesday, she had taken her crusade to the next level-she was urging the media to blackout any politicians that were grandstanding instead of preaching peace. Talk of the need to heal the wounds caused by the acrimonious elections will dominate the airwaves in the next few weeks, but I find such a call hollow and insincere if it’s not accompanied with some mechanism of sorting out the real or imagined injustice that sparked this national disaster in the first place. I expect that ECK will come out and offer some sort of explanation to this fiasco.