The protest got off to a slow start at the set time of 10am with a handful of street urchins marching up and down Harambee Avenue with a banner that read, “youth against terrorism.”
But things started to warm up when Francis Ouma, clad in a red t-shirt branded ‘Tumechoka’ (we’re tired), went on his knees outside one of the access gates to the Office of the President and began shouting at the officers manning it.
“You should be in Mandera, not here guarding a select few Kenyans and pieces of paper,” he said in reference to Saturday’s execution of 28 Kenyans in the county.
Before long Ouma was joined by a few dozen other protesters clad in similar t-shirts and with placards that read, ‘Safety is my right,’ ‘Promises, promises, promises, do it,’ and ‘Bribery keeps our borders porous.’
All messages targeted at President Uhuru Kenyatta and perhaps best expressed by the t-shirts branded, ‘Mr. President we need your action on security.’
Other than placards they also brought with them hundreds of small crosses painted red.
“Red for the blood of those who’ve lost their lives to the incompetence of Lenku and Kimaiyo,” protest organiser Boniface Mwangi explained.
The ouster of Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Ole Lenku and Inspector General of Police David Kimaiyo being the main motive for their sit-in outside the Office of the President.
“If he (President Kenyatta) is too afraid to sack them, let him do what he did with the intelligence chief and ask them to resign. How many more people need to die beforehe takes decisive action?” Mwangi posed.
But what was meant to be a peaceful protest got off to a rocky start when the urchins, armed with knives, began to destroy the crosses and demanded to know from Mwangi where he got money to print t-shirts and obtain crosses.
All of which took place in the full view of anti-riot police who stood by and watched passively.
“If the police can just stand by and watch I need not ask who brought them here to harass us,” Mwangi said in reference to the urchins.
Mwangi and his supporters were however more urchins and among them was gospel hip-hop artist David Mathenge.
“I’m here because I’m tired of being a keyboard protester as most middle class Kenyans are accused of being. I’m tired of being afraid, being afraid to shop because I’m reminded of Westgate. Now just imagine what life is like for those at the frontline of this war, at the Kenya-Somalia border. I mean isn’t it just common sense that we should have sufficient troops there? Why did 28 Kenyans have to die for Kimaiyo to deploy more troops there?” Mathenge challenged.
Also present at the sit-in was Kakamega Senator Boni Khalwale who sang, danced, chanted and sat, in unison with the protesters.
“Ruto come out, Uhuru come out,” he shouted as he walked between the Office of the President and that of the Deputy President.
But they did not emerge and there was no petition to present either, “it was torn by the urchins,” Boniface said. “We will present something else in place of that.”
And that they did.
As has come to be expected of protests Mwangi is involved in organising, there was a piece de resistance that effectively brought the sit-in to an unceremonious end.
The protesters formed a large cross at the centre of the road with their smaller ones, dumping water bottles on top of them. And when four miniature coffins arrived, set them all ablaze.
By: Olive Burrows/Kenya