Smoke rose into the sky as houses burned down to ashes, helpless screams of children, women and men rent the air. The once peace and laughter had turned to destruction and sorrow. Families held their children tightly searching for safety not knowing where to go, as neighbours who for years lived peacefully had turned against each other at the stroke of December 30, 2007 evening.
This was the norm during the 2007/2008 Post-Election Violence (PEV) after the disputed presidential election. The kind of violence that all Kenyans must strive to avoid the country plunging into. It is a dent in Kenya’s storied history, one that led to the death of at least 1,500 people and the displacement of 700,000 Kenyans, leaving behind permanent scars, bitterness, loss and horrific memories.
The 2007/2008 PEV erupted across the country after the Electoral Commission of Kenya declared the incumbent, President Mwai Kibaki, as the winner of 2007 Presidential Election. Supporters of Kibaki’s main opponent, Orange Democratic Movement’s (ODM) Raila Odinga, believed that the election results were unfair and manipulated.
Even when announcing the results and declaring Kibaki the winner in a secluded room after chaotic events at Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC), the chairperson of the electoral commission, the late Samuel Kivuitu, confessed that he did not know who had won the elections.
Politicians should be careful
Yet close to two decades down the line, with the country putting those horrors behind it, reckless actions and sentiments from politicians risk plunging the country back into the same situation.
Former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, in May 2025, made such remarks that could easily plunge the country into chaos, when he liked the 2007 PEV to a Christmas party.
Gachagua came under sharp criticism from all quarters of the country.
Kilifi North MP Owen Baya implored the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) to reign on Gachagua: “I want to asl NCIC to act, they have laws and powers to deal with that. If we allow someone to make those utterances, another person will also pick it up, another leader will say the same things and this country will go to the dogs once again.”
National Assembly Minority Leader Junet Mohamed urged Kenyans not to allow politicians to divide them along tribal lines again: I want to ask Kenyans not to listen to inciteful people, not to listen people who want to divide them according to their tribes, and not to listen to people who have formed regional, tribal, ethnic political parties.”
National Assembly Majority Leader Kimani Ichung’wah averred that “no Kenyan should ever die for politics. We should never ever again entertain the politics of bloodshed in this country.”
Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi also asserted that no Kenyan should flirt with a repeat of the 2007 violence. “It is not something that we should threaten people with like Gachagua did.”
And as the country heads into the 2027 General Election, all of us — citizens, politicians, leaders — should strive to maintain the peace that we have enjoyed over the years.
We don’t want a repeat of Internally Displaced People (IDPs) overcrowded in makeshift camps with no food, or living in schools where our children are supposed to be studying.
They say “after a storm comes peace”, for Kenyans the calm has just begun and unity rises as true strength of democracy. But, we must not forget what plunged us into violence, so as to avoid those very vices forever.
