Kenya desperately needs a turnaround, says Boniface Mwangi

This week, human rights activist Boniface Mwangi responds to your questions

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1. Early last month, DCI officers arrested you on suspicion of planning a political revolution that was likely to lead to civil unrest and breach of peace. What do you say about these allegations and what is your take on a revolution’s effectiveness in bringing about the much-needed order to our country? Andrew Maranga Ratemo, Malindi

I am part of a community of Kenyans working quietly to bring lasting pro-people change. Revolution is not a bad word. It simply means turnaround.

It is an idea you can’t jail or punish out of people because when a country needs a turnaround, no one can stop it.

This country desperately needs a turnaround. Our current state as a nation is not acceptable. People are tired of corruption, impunity, poor services, threats and being constantly lied to by officials.

Revolutions can take many shapes. You can have street protests and armed revolt, but the most beautiful and sustainable change is a ballot revolution.

The revolution is coming. It may not be from Ukweli Party, where I am party leader, or within a stated period of time, but it must come. We did it in 2002 and 2022 will be a game-changer for Kenya.

2. What is your comment and advice to President Uhuru Kenyatta on the irony in his war on corruption, considering that he has appealed to Kenyans, not once but severally, that they should join him in fighting graft yet he appears reluctant to sack those in his administration implicated in graft? Moreover, demonstrators in the Beyond Zero Campaign were recently tear-gassed and arrested by the police. Albert Muthomi Nyaga, Embu

I have to admit that in 2016, President Kenyatta wrote to me saying he had been fighting the cartels, drug barons and the land grabbers.

He was asking for my support to change the narrative that he wasn’t serious.

The same thing I said in my response to him, which I have said publicly, is that he must walk the talk.

Our jails are still full of petty offenders while the wealthy and politically connected economic saboteurs walk free.

There are many simple things President Kenyatta can do to genuinely address corruption.

He can spearhead the implementation of the Truth Justice and Reconciliation report; recovery of stolen public money and property listed in the Kroll Report, and implementation of the Ndung’u Commission report on Illegal and Irregular Allocation of Public Land.

The President should cure the myths he has created that the fight against corruption is as complex as rocket science. He should fumigate his own house.

3. As an activist, you have been vindicated on the current status of our country. When you took to the streets to decry the greed of our MPs, many could not grasp your level of agitation. Young MPs who we thought would engineer change have gone quiet on the recent house allowance. Had you won in the last polls, what would you have done in the circumstances? Komen Moris, Eldoret

As a candidate, my campaign was funded by the people. I made promises that I had every intention to keep.

And if the move to award the MPs illegal housing allowances happened when I was in Parliament, l would have been the whistleblower.

I would have started making actual steps towards demonstrating what defending people means, just as Okiya Omtata moved to the High Court and sued all the 416 MPs demanding that the money they have received be recovered, and further funds stopped forthwith.

I would be suing 415 MPs. My record attests that I have neither problem nor fear standing up alone.

It is a shame that not a single MP rose to protect citizens against the collective greed of the National Assembly.

4. Do you sincerely care for the welfare of Kenyans or what is your real motivation? Do you have foreign masters? Joseph Chege

I love this country more than you will ever know.

I was an award-winning photographer and my work was known globally. So, if it’s about the profile, l had and still have a powerful one.

I am not looking for empty affirmations or recognition. I am a father of three children who deserve to live in a much-better Kenya.

I owe it to them to play my part as a responsible person to show them what it means to be better.

Sadly, my family has been threatened because of my fight for a better Kenya. I have suffered a lot covering executions and mob justice in the fight to make Kenya better.

My body bears visible and invisible scars from injuries suffered fighting for the better Kenya that I wish to see.

So, no. I have no foreign masters because no one is worth risking for all that I have risked.

I don’t do this for money and no one pays me. I have a job as a photographer and a creative, and sometimes I get hired to design emotive campaigns for corporates on business terms.

I also give public talks to corporates and institutions, including some Ivy League universities abroad.

I was in London last month to give a talk; I will be in Tunisia next week and in South Africa in July. That is how I earn a living.

5. You were among the five people who were charged for demolishing a wall at Naka Primary School in a land dispute in Nakuru. The case was extensively covered by your strong PAWA 24 media crew. How did the school benefit from that coverage? Dan Murugu, Nakuru

Last month, we were supposed to fence the school land and do ground-breaking for Naka Secondary School.

We were however served with a court order by the private developer to stop work.

Both the court and a parliamentary commission ascertained that the land belongs to the school, but the private developer is still trying to have his day in court after he appealed the DPP’s application to acquit us.

Concerning the coverage, we tell our own stories. We do that because we want to inspire more active citizens to copy our actions and tell the stories that matter to them.

It is a real tragedy when privileged individuals attempt to steal the future of our children by denying them the right to an education.

Since we reclaimed Lang'ata Road Primary School in 2015, over 1,000 Kenyan public schools have been given their title deeds.

Only 2,556 of the country’s 27,943 public schools have title deeds, and so the campaign to protect public schools land continues.

We have Shule Yangu Alliance that is working with Lands Cabinet Secretary Farida Karoney to ensure all schools have title deeds.

6. Even though the people of Starehe did not elect you in 2017, your message and what your party, Ukweli, stood for resonated well with the electorate. Would you consider taking a second shot at the seat in 2022? And what is your relationship with former Chief Justice Willy Mutunga? Brenda Julius, Starehe Constituency

Comrade Willy Mutunga is like a father to me. I meet him for lunch once a month and we talk every week.

Willy is not a pretender, and if he was a part of Ukweli Party, he would say it.

He refused to be part of the leadership because he said young people build platforms and give them to old people.

He has zero interest in elective politics, but he has been a good teacher to me.

7. In your assessment, what difference would it make to your cause if you abandoned street protests? Githuku Mungai

Article 37 of the Constitution of Kenya provides for freedom of peaceful assembly. I have the right to assemble, demonstrate and picket.

Multiparty democracy in Kenya, Uhuru Park and Karura Forest are products of street protests.

I don’t do skirmishes and I have never been charged with, or accused of assault. It is the police who bring violence to peaceful protests.

They come with guns and shoot, beat and tear-gas people. The Kenyan media has failed in how it covers protests.

They make it look like it is wrong to do that. As Wangari Maathai said, “Human rights are not things that are put on the table for people to enjoy. These are things you fight for and then you protect.”

I shall do whatever it takes to protect the public good; go to the streets, to court, run for a Parliament post, by any means necessary.

8. In the recent past, you have been very vocal in attacking the outgoing KQ CEO Sebastian Mikosz. Looked at from another angle, Mr Mikosz has made some positive strides at KQ by significantly reducing its losses from a high of Sh25 billion to Sh7.5 billion this year. Do you think his move to resign before his term ends will be the solution to the KQ woes? Edwin Murimi Nyagah, radio presenter, Wimwaro FM

Let us get it clear that I wasn’t attacking him when I said that Mikosz lied to Parliament. I was stating facts.

Now it is in the public domain that the salary he claimed to be earning in public and private were conflicting.

The inconsistencies on what he told us publicly and what the financial results said were many.

No one is indispensable, and I am sure KQ will find someone to replace him.

He refused to listen to airline experts who told him not to fly to New York once daily and he decided to launch a daily flight that makes no financial sense.

I hope once he leaves he can release a dossier of the people looting Kenya Airways; the people we lease aircraft from, and why KQ is haemorrhaging.

9. What do you see as the solution to the rampant graft? Paul Gesimba, Nairobi

Until when wealthy thieves will not be immune to consequences of their actions, nothing will change. So, start by jailing people.

Big thieves fear jail and humiliation more than death. ‘The Buck Stops Here’ was a sign on US President Harry S. Truman’s desk in his White House office, which means he couldn’t pass the responsibility onto someone else. In Kenya, the fish is rotting from the head.

10. After one of the protests you had called in February 2014 and for which you were arrested and tortured, you announced that you were quitting activism. However, five years later, I still see you on the streets. Was this talk of quitting just hot air? Petra Alushula, Nairobi

“But if I say I’ll never mention the Lord or speak in his name; his word burns in my heart like a fire. It’s like a fire in my bones! I am worn out trying to hold it in! I can’t do it!” — Jeremiah 20:9.

I feel like Jeremiah, I can’t run away from my calling to help liberate Kenya from its corrupt leadership.

11. Your breakthrough came during the 2007/2008 post-election violence as the pictures you took brought the reality of the violence closer to people. But you seem to have abandoned photography which had brought you the fame you enjoy. Why is this so? David M. Wachira, Nairobi

I have continued to take pictures since then, but none of them have reached the audience levels the post-election violence work achieved.

I started PAWA254, a space for creatives and artists who use art for social change.

So, when I started this journey, I was alone, but now there are many artists doing the same thing.

I did a project called Diaper Mentality a few years ago depicting images of Kenyans in diapers as a metaphor to our persistent crises as a nation and reluctance and failure to meaningfully seek solutions.

Last year, l did a project of petty offenders in prison. The work is part of a campaign seeking to decriminalise petty offences.