My phone rang in the middle of the night and it’s a phone call I thought I would never receive so many years since the repressive reign of terror of former authoritarian dictator President Daniel Arap Moi. Since he reinvented himself as a democrat and allowed multiparty democracy to take root in Kenya more than 15 years ago, we breathed an air of freedom and cast away the many nights of fear, waiting for a nock on the door that would lead to torture, detention or even disappearance. That was until December 30, 2007 when the unthinkable happened and Mr. Mwai Kibaki, the erstwhile champion of democracy and freedom stole the dreams and hopes of our nation, painstakingly built and nurtured for so long.

Thursday January 3rd had been a day full of countrywide running battles between protesters against the stolen election and police. Fires burnt all day and night, shanties and big business establishments alike, going up in smoke. TV images flashed around the world, a doomsday scenario seemed the reality in many parts of my country Kenya. I couldn’t help wondering, as many of my fellow citizens did, how come we had sank so low. Loud sounds of gunfire rent the air as teargas wafted through the occasionally breezy city landscape, stinging the eyes even in the relative safety of homes.

The clear, calm and cloudless blue sky belied the raging turmoil as reports came in of more dead, wounded and displaced. As day turned to dusk, tensions seemed to ease somewhat; perhaps due to exhaustion on the part of the protesters and lack of nourishment as most city shops and supermarkets were either shut, looted and burnt, or simply out of supplies. Occasional busts of gunfire could be heard around the residential districts and the restive day turned to a restless light.

That same night came the phone call. His voice was full of anxiety, fear and trepidation. His Name was Kipkemoi Kirui. I had last seen in him on TV on December 28th, introduced by Raila Odinga, the Presidential candidate and leader of the Orange Democratic Movement. Kirui was a deputy parliamentary clerk seconded to the electoral commission (ECK) as a senior tallying officer. He spoke to the press, his voice cracking with emotion and confessed to having witnessed the blatant tampering of vote results at the electoral commission head quarters. According to him, his conscience could not let him be party to robbing Kenyans of their free will exercised at the ballot box to change the regime constitutionally. http://allafrica.com/stories/200712310834.html

He left the ECK offices and fled for dear life. And now, his life was in danger. He was on the run, hunted down by state security agents. He’d had to change homes six times in the last four days, his phones were tapped, his homes watched and was trailed every where he went. He was now pleading with me to help him escape, leave his beloved country, family and friends and flee as a refugee, a hunted man, if only to save his life.

I made some preliminary calls to contacts that might help him access any friendly embassies to assist Kirui and my fears were confirmed. State security agents were literally combing the city through the night hunting for Kirui and other Electoral officials who came out in the open to dispute the poll result as announced by the ECK chairman. The same sources confirmed that they had seen a bank statement of a transfer of one hundred million Kenya shillings (US$1.5 Million) to the ECK chairman’s account at a Nairobi bank in order to have him alter the election results.

Unfortunately, my contacts were unsuccessful. Having been out of the country for the last six years, I wasn’t as connected as I used to be. The only high level contact at the Netherlands embassy had the audacity to ask me to tell Mr. Kurui to go to the police! Since then, I have not heard from Mr. Kirui, a man of integrity, who came out in the open, exposed to Kenyans the blatant theft of their votes and dreams and in the process risked his life so that Kenyans might know the truth.

While my friend goes missing, the political standoff remains. Despite calls by the country’s principal legal advisor, the attorney General Amnos wako, for a vote recount or admissions by electoral commissioners of the flawed result, an illegitimate president hangs on to power. He is adamant, refusing all attempts at international mediation and declining to meet the opposition’s conditions for dialogue.

The opposition too is intransigent and refuses to relent. Meanwhile passions remain high among a majority of the population that feels robbed of their dreams, hopes and aspirations. Numerous pleas and initiatives from a cross section of Kenyans and the international community seem to fall on deaf ears, no Nobel Laureate, no chairman of the African Union, no senior and renowned citizens, no humble civil society, no pleas from ordinary mothers and children seems to move them so far and there seems to be no light at the end of the nightmare. The country continues to bleed.

Ironically, as the morning breaks, Barack Obama, whom we consider as one of our own, wins the Iowa primaries in the US presidential race with a message of hope and change; while the country of his father continues to plunge at the precipice of a national catastrophe beyond imagination. While many of my citizens have lost their lives, I hope that my Friend Mr. Kirui is alive and well where ever he may be.