Mike Ratemo @PeopleDailyKe
A carnival mood engulfed the Safaricom Stadium Kasarani, Nairobi as the ongoing national music festival entered the ninth day. There was especially fierce battle in poetry with many performances dwelling on the country’s frailties in integration and unity.
Most pieces urged restraint in the forthcoming campaigns noting that the country’s checkered history in elections could rear its ugly head once again.
St Catherine Kesses Girls from Uasin Gishu County took the audience through a rollercoaster of emotions with their poem, moto wenu, meaning your fire, that sent a powerful message to the youth.
They urged them to desist from being used as puppets during elections where they are armed by politicians to drive away “enemy” communities considered hostile and not likely to vote for “their” candidate.
The girls who resorted to satire said the fire in schools, stones, teargas, bullets, water cannons and other projectiles used in street protests should be hurled at ethnicity, and lynched. Bishop Okulu Magare Girls from Homa Bay County echoed St Catherine’s sentiments with their own piece titled “tuko rada” meaning we are alert. It denounced leadership based on divide-and-rule.
So charged were proceedings that not even the collapse of an iron sheet ceiling in the indoor main arena could dampen the spirits exhibited by competitors.
The ceiling caved in shortly after the morning events had kicked off narrowly missing from Mawego Girls who were leaving the stage. Proceedings were halted for a while as evacuation led by Nairobi county commander Japheth Koome was undertaken and later action resumed after a one-hour hiatus.
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