*
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men (and women) to do nothing”- Edmund Burke
Five ways you can help me win in Starehe.
1. Donate. Because of you I have raised 20% of my campaign budget. Continue to pitch in
Mpesa Paybill: 652451 Account: TeamBonnie.
Direct Mpesa: 0792 788 638
2. Volunteer to campaign with us door-to-door. Convince your friends in Starehe to vote for me
3. Adopt a polling agent. There are 173,820 registered voters in Starehe, 27 polling stations.
We need to recruit and train 500 polling agents. You can be one of them. Join us and help protect our vote.
4. Share my manifesto, photos, videos, agenda on social media and WhatsApp. Spread the word. Hashtag: #StareheNiBonnie
5. Donate in-kind. We need laptops, phones, airtime and fuel for the campaign team. Media adverts and billboards. Banners and campaign fliers.
Most Importantly VOTE!
*
This race was never going to be easy! A lot of things I have done in my life have not been easy, though. I am just a simple man; a man whose mother’s first job, when she came to Nairobi looking for work, was as a house girl. My mother passed away at barely 48 years of age, after fighting a brave battle with liver cancer. At the time of her death, she was a hawker on the streets of Nairobi. I have had my fair share of setbacks. I was a high school drop-out, who only recently sat for my KCSE at the age of 33, and as the son of a hawker we struggled to make ends meet. Instead of giving up, though, I learned how to fight for what I want.
My grandfather was a Mau Mau fighter and was sent to Manyani Prison by the British government. My mother grew up in the village as her father served time for fighting to free Kenya. I come from a family of fighters who come from the same area as the great Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi and the renowned Prof. Wangari Maathai.
As the Member of Parliament for Starehe, l will fight for the rights of the poor and disadvantaged members of society. Long before I became who I am today, I faced hunger, was beaten, arrested and locked up for fighting for what I believed in. I am not afraid to fight and I will fight for the rights of small traders, hawkers and boda boda riders to conduct their businesses without kanjo harassment.
Why do I fight, though? Why do l risk my life? Why do I endure personal ridicule and harassment from critics? The answer is simple, really. I love Kenya dearly. I want my three children, whom we proudly chose to give names from other tribes, to grow up in a better country than we have now. My love for Kenya is so deep that l cannot fully explain it.
I am running for love. I love Starehe where I grew up and have worked for many years. I have so many fond memories of growing up in Nairobi; memories of a clean, functional and structured city. I remember swimming in Nairobi River and fishing in the numerous ponds around the city. There were clean streams everywhere. Mango and guava trees abounded. The trees and fruits have disappeared and Nairobi is now a dirty, concrete jungle. No building code is followed. I long to see a great Nairobi once again.
There are those who are disappointed that I am running for public office. Why would I choose to vie for the Starehe parliamentary seat when I’m able to travel the world on speaking engagements about different issues? Why do I choose Parliamentary debates over sitting down with influential leaders to discuss how to innovate change? I am running for office because we need to take charge of our elective politics. It is politics that determines our quality of life, our safety, health and even the quality of air that we breathe. I am running as an activist and will continue with the work l have being doing in the streets by means of pursuing a legislative agenda inside parliament. Our politics is misguided, overrun with money and false promises. We need to elect leaders who can make our lives better and l have a good record of public service and a vision to improve Starehe. The people of Starehe have nothing to lose by electing someone who has been tried, tested and proven to be consistent.
Starehe can be safer and cleaner and l cannot continue to stand by while it continues to disintegrate. I want to ensure that not only are the voices of the people in Starehe heard, but that the taxes we pay every year to the County and National governments are put to good use.
My integrity is unquestionable. I am pushing for salary cuts, zero allowances, no car grants and for elected officials to use public hospitals whenever they need to seek medical attention. I will fight for all Starehe people to get access to quality public education, better healthcare and a cleaner, safer Nairobi. I will fight for greater working relationships between small traders, hawkers, boda boda riders and the county governments. I will work to ensure that their legitimate ways of earning a living are supported, rather than punished. Nairobi must be a united home of innovation and prosperity, shunning ethnic backgrounds, religion and class. All this is achievable in Starehe and l believe, if elected as the MP of Starehe, that we shall build a new Nairobi.
Stand with me. Support my campaign financially. Campaign for and with me. Vote for me. I cannot do this alone. I need your time and resources. Building a new Kenya is our collective responsibility. Join me this Friday, 2nd June 2017, at 10am, as l present my nomination papers to the IEBC offices at KICD (formerly KIE) in Ngara, off Muranga Road. You can donate to our campaign Mpesa Paybill: 652451. Account number: TeamBonnie. Direct Mpesa/Wave: 0792 788 638
Today l turn 34 years old and in 29 days’ time I stand to be elected as the next Member of Parliament for Starehe. Running for office has opened my eyes to the inequalities in this country.
Yes, I grew up in the hood, but the level of poverty and hopelessness is worse than it was when l was young. I stumbled on three childhood friends, Fei (Faith), Sam and Edu. We grew up together and today they live in an alley, called District 13 on Chai Road. District 13 lacks all amenities; housing, electricity, proper drainage, toilets and security. We reminisced about the good old days; when we could swim in Nairobi river, fish for tadpoles and run around city park. They are now representative of the great divide between the haves and the have nots. I have witnessed how tribalism continues to hoodwink the poor from uniting and fighting for a better Kenya. I got news for you, Kenya has only two tribes, the poor and the rich. The good news is, the tide is changing.
Kenyans are pulling together through support of my candidacy to ensure that my childhood friends’ lives will change. Since the day I made the decision to run for the Starehe parliamentary seat, I knew the path I had chosen was an unpopular one and it was going to be incredibly difficult, but never did I imagine that I would experience the kind of love I have received from people I have never met before in my life. Beyond the mental push to keep up with a demanding schedule, raising campaign funds has proved to the greatest hurdle. Kenyan politics is awash with dirty money. Drug dealers, looters and anyone who wants to protect ill-gotten wealth runs for public office. The first qualification to vie for public office is money and competence is an afterthought. When we did our draft campaign budget, I was shocked at the total cost. I shared the problem with a very close friend of mine and he told me that, even before independence, Kenyans have always supported their leaders. They contributed to educating them, and even sent them abroad to represent our grievances when fighting for independence. After years of being shafted by politicians, Kenyans only financially support funerals, higher education, hospital bills and the occasional wedding but never politicians.
On this day, I declare my faith, belief and love for the Kenyan people. To date, thousands of Kenyans have contributed 5,278,844 shillings out of our KSh 10 million goal. During the past week, a good friend managed to organize a fundraising dinner where, together with his friends, a total of 1.6 million shillings was raised. Another couple emptied their savings and contributed an additional 1 million shillings. This shows a great belief in our transformative agenda for Starehe. We are now a movement. A movement that seeks change and promises to represent the people of Starehe with the loudest voice possible. No longer shall we be silent when they raise their salaries. No longer shall we be silent when the city council harass us, as we go about our work in the city. No longer shall we be silent when they grab our childrens’ school land. No longer shall we be silent when they take away our homes without compensating us. No longer shall our leadership lack accountability.
I believe in accountability. I have shared a graph of how much we have spent so far and what it has been spent on. Our audited accounts will be posted after the election. We will continue to work towards the kind of leadership we want in this country, and the one that the people of Starehe will vote for come August 8th. Running for elective office should be carried out in the most transparent manner and I urge those who are doing so to make public their campaign expenditure.
I will continue to spread our manifesto, knocking on every door in Starehe and speaking to every man, woman and child. I am doing this for Fei, Sam and Edu. I am running for all those who have suffered all these years wishing for a better life. Together we are changing Kenyan politics and together we are changing Starehe. #StareheNiBonnie
________________________________________________________________________________________________
2007-08: Butchered, burnt alive, stoned to death, shot dead, 1,133 murdered. Thousands of women and girls were sexually violated; individual and gang rape. Gruesome sexual violence, including female genital mutilation among women and forced circumcision among men and boys. In some instances families, including children, were forced to watch their parents, brothers and sisters being sexually violated. Over 500,000 Kenyans became refugees in their own country. Not a single politician or their immediate family suffered this kind of violence. 10 years later we, Kenyans, have forgotten the damaging effects of tribal politics.
To my generation, we have a problem – our friends, colleagues and families are fighting over Uhuru and Raila. Some of us are saying inflammatory things and sharing negative posts. The seeds of hate being sown by politicians and their ignorant supporters will cost Kenya dearly. We are poisoning our country with our written and spoken words. As we defend the politicians, we should not be destroying whatever small unity we have in Kenya.
We need each other every day of our lives (all the different tribes), to make this beautiful mosaic of a country that we call Kenya work. While our parents may have had bigoted views on other tribes, it is utter foolishness for us to follow down that destructive path.
There are no tribal banks where your tribe will automatically get free cash. Your life is not your tribe. You cannot use tribe as a currency to pay school fees, rent, busfare or even hospital bills. No politician loots and brings the spoils to their tribe. They steal for their own family. The title deeds, bank accounts and companies they own belong to them, not the tribe. Defending someone because of their tribe and not the values they represent is utter stupidity. Remember, if violence erupts in Kenya, the politicians will not fight or bleed. It’s the poor who fight and die like fools for the politicians while the middle class go to war online. The true tragedy of tribalism is that it blinds us from fighting real national issues; corruption, poverty, unemployment, high cost of living and insecurity.
When we get sick and go to the hospital we don’t ask what tribe the doctor is or the tribe of your blood donor when we have a transfusion. Our children’s teachers’ tribe doesn’t matter as long as our children study. The religious leaders have aligned tribally. We, the people, have a choice not to do that. To those celebrating hate speech, be very afraid. Our young children will pay dearly if we don’t fight tribalism. The immediate struggle of our generation must be to fight tribalism. If Kenyans unite and deal with tribalism, it will be easier to elect national leaders, not based on their tribal formations, but for their manifesto and vision for Kenya.
70% of the 48 million Kenyans are under 35 years old. We shall outlive Uhuru and Raila. So let’s secure our future by taking a stand against tribal politics today.
After this election is over we need to have an honest national dialogue on tribalism. It is the monster in the room. We must deal with it.
Seja o primeiro a comentar