NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct 26- ‘Tame your tongues’, it is a direct message to politicians from victims and survivors of post-election violence- an ugly cycle in the country every five years.
This was during the launch of the Building Bridges Initiative report at Bomas of Kenya- where the national debate on the document kicked off.
And it is Lenser Achieng Sege, the mother to slain Baby Pendo who caught the national moment alongside her husband Joseph Abanja- with their appeal for unity to end bloodshed.
She still recalls the events of the fateful day on August 11, 2017, when her 6-month-old baby’s life was snatched from her, right in the safety of their rental home in Nyalenda slums.
“A flower was uprooted from my garden and it can never be replaced. I can be given another person, but that cannot be baby Pendo,” she said.
Her challenge to politicians is to advance the debate of BBI soberly and to ensure the trend of violence over politics is forever reversed.
“To you politicians, when you are coming to us Kenyans, just sell your agenda. And to those who have lost, let us always agree with the winning side, for the country to move on,” she said.
“When you politicians are coming to us, be careful of what comes from your mouths. Do not incite us to violence, yet your life is never disrupted.”
Abanja on his part urged President Uhuru Kenyatta to remember victims of violence, even as the country chart a new constitutional path.
“Let us not lie to each other here and then revert to old ways of insults and violence,” Abanja, who gave an anecdote of a football match where winners and losers shake hands after every game, said.
“Let my baby’s blood be the last to be shed over political violence.”
His personal appeal to the President was, “please remember baby Pendo’s family. We are suffering.”
Another post-election violence was Joseph Maina from Kuresoi area in Nakuru County, an area often marred by violence- saying he hopes the BBI initiative will be the key to peace.
Since 1992, his family has been forced to move from their maternal home, over violence.
“If this document will be the solution, let it be,” Maina said.
The event was attended by tens of leaders among them Deputy President William Ruto and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
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