Dear Kipipiri MP and Ol Kalou DCP candidate,
We address you as young citizens of Nyandarua who have watched, with a mixture of disbelief and disgust, the downhill path of your utterances into the lowest sewers of political incitement.
What you have respectively uttered recently is against any civilised political order.
To the Kipipiri MP, you issued a threat so nakedly hateful that one might have mistaken you for a village “kariko” rather than a holder of a constitutional office.
You warned any person not native to Ol Kalou that their presence in the area would result in their being “lynched.” You went further, advising such an alien to surrender his or her ATM card and other fortunes to his or her spouse before venturing into what you evidently regard as DCP’s exclusive fiefdom.
This is not politics. This is the language of a shameless warlord whose desire is to incite people to violence.
To you the DCP candidate, your warning to some unnamed person was utterly off-putting. You advised non-Ol Kalou campaigners to forfeit their earthly belongings to their next of kin should they dare set foot in the constituency.
The cowardice you must surely suffer is the reason for your poisonous sentiment. Clearly, your credentials as a leader are as wanting as is your attitude.
A candidate or an MP who truly believes in her or his own popularity would welcome rivals and their emissaries with open arms. After all democracy is a contest of ideas! There is no reason to resort to threats of violence simply because you have sensed defeat. Only people who have already sensed defeat behave that way.
A confident politician does not need to threaten anyone in a political contest. A candidate who trusts the people does not advise anyone to write a will before engaging in a campaign mission.
The threats you have issued amount to a confession that once the people of Ol Kalou are accorded a free and fair chance they will choose the person who has shown the potential to win.
But now because you cannot bear that truth, you have chosen to make the constituency unsafe for anyone who reminds you of your imminent loss.
You have made a graveyard of the memory of the late Hon. David Kiaraho. A man who served his people until his last breath deserved a campaign in his honour, and one of ideas and respect.
Instead, you have turned his vacant seat into a stage for hatred. The people of Nyandarua will not forget that you have chosen to dance on a grave rather than campaign with dignity.
We call upon the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC), and all lawful authorities to take immediate notice and action. Threats of violence, especially those framed in hatefulness, are not and can never be tolerated. Such threats belong to a criminal enterprise that must be punished.
That you have uttered them while clothed in the pretence of leadership makes the offence even worse.
As for you, Kipipiri MP, you swore an oath to the Constitution, which guarantees every Kenyan the right to campaign anywhere in the republic. Your threats are a betrayal of that oath.
And you, the DCP candidate, your party’s name invokes democracy for the citizens, yet you would deny citizens the right to hear from whomever they wish. That is democracy only for those who cower before you.
We, the Nyandarua Youth League Representatives, will not be intimidated. We shall campaign where we please, for whomever we choose, without seeking your permission or writing our wills. We shall not forget you for threatening the people of Ol Kalou and Nyandarua over a temporary political contest.
The good thing is that we now know who you are.
Yours in disappointment and dismay, Nyandarua Youth League Representatives
