My apologies to Kumekucha readers who have been waiting all day for this post. I have been chasing all day, concrete information on this worrying Mungiki violence that entered its’ second day in many parts of Kenya today.
The Rift Valley Railways has earlier today suspended commuter train services after two of their trains were derailed yesterday. All in all 3 people were killed on this second day of violence. One was a watchman in Ngara who tried to run away when the Mungiki struck a car garage and burnt several cars.
In Nairobi’s Ngummo estate (not far from the Kibera slums) a commuter bus belonging to KBS was burnt this morning. Muranga town remain a ghost town with most businesses refusing to open citing threats from Mungiki adherents to remain closed or else…
The police are being very secretive, but insider sources have just told Kumekucha that “things have gotten worse tonight” no further details could be given.
There is something here very strange unfolding in Kenyan politics before our very eyes.
The first and extremely worrying thing about both yesterday’s and today’s Mungiki attacks countrywide is simply this. It did not take 24 hours for the whole sick operation to be planned. The truth is that it must have taken days and most likely weeks to plan it. This leads us to the second important clue, the timing which is very important in unraveling the whole mystery. The attacks started the day after the grand coalition cabinet was announced. Meaning that the whole thing was planned and organized and then the whole countrywide Mungiki organization waited for the order to move. It seems they got it on Sunday night.
This in itself is extremely scary. More so because it is rather obvious that the estimated 1.5 million youths countrywide are taking instructions from somebody with vested interests in Kenyan politics as sensitive and deadly as it is at the moment. (You can find out more about the identity of that person and their motives from my raw notes this week.)
In an exclusive interview on Jeff Koinange’s K24 TV station yesterday a spokesperson for Mungiki interviewed deep in a secret location that seems to be a hideout of sorts said that the group intends “to keep the fire burning” until justice is done. He also said that the group has 1.5 million registered members countrywide. That is without cpounting the sympathizers.
The spokesman who was not wearing a mask and identified himself as Njunguna Gitau Njunguna also said that Maina Njenga’s wife would not be buried until the husband is released to attend the funeral “even if it takes 5 years” for this to happen.
Njuguna denied that the group he was representing, the Kenya National Youth Alliance had anything to do with the proscribed Mungiki. That is because this Njuguna fellow is no fool—the Mungiki group is proscribed which means it is illegal even to associate with it. However it is quite clear that Mungiki has now mutated into the Kenya National Youth Alliance. Njunguna said that the organization he represented was a registered political party and that Mungiki was finished by extra-judicial killings ordered by former internal security minister John Michuki.
Folks, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but it seems the much talked about second wave of violence has started, albeit in a very different manner from what most people expected. This time what is being used are clever guerilla tactics where the Mungiki emerge (usually in the early hours of the morning) cause chaos and then vanish into thin air, leaving police to harass and arrest mostly the victims rather than the perpetrators.
The bottom line is that violence seems to have taken over as the most powerful political tool in the country and it would seem that this Mungiki uprising is aimed at reversing all the gains that may have been made by ODM after the widespread violence of early this year mainly in vast, mostly fertile Rift Valley.
The Mungiki attacks are not up hazard, but well planned, intricately executed and carefully targeted. The truth is that the public transport system in Nairobi is now virtually at a stand still and many workers are finding it increasingly difficult to get to work.
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