Peace Procession/Protest: State Funeral, Jan. 16 2013 @ Uhuru Park’s Freedom Corner to Parliament Buildings

State Burial 

PichaMtaani are inviting Kenyans from all walks of life on Wednesday, 16th January 2013 at 10am, at Uhuru Park’s Freedom Corner to give the members of parliament the golden handshake they deserve.

Parliament officially closes on Tuesday 15th and the following day we shall deliver 221 coffins one for each outgoing Member of Parliament. 

The non violent, peace procession will be from Uhuru Park to parliament with thousands of Kenyans anti-vulture flags while carrying the coffins .

This protest will signify the end of five years of impunity by the 10th parliament. The protest will also be a reminder to the leaders that Kenyans are ready for a peaceful ballot revolution.

Last week members of parliament secretly passed a controversial KShs 9.3 million golden handshake. The MPs also approved that each of them gets an armed bodyguard, a diplomatic passport for the retiree and his wife and unlimited access to the executive lounge for Very Important Person in all the airports within Kenya.

President Kibaki declined to assent to the Retirement Benefits bill enacted by the National Assembly on Thursday 10th January 2013. We are holding our leaders responsible for their actions hence the coffins symbolising death to impunity & bad leadership. 

Visit the event page on Facebook 

You can tweet about it and spread the word. Hash tag #state burial #statefuneral

We want to encourage Kenyans to take proactive action in the advent of the bad leadership.

Mavulture Graffiti in City Street  [Photo by Andre Epstein]

This is your chance to join other Kenyans in speaking out against impunity and organize to vote for change. See you on Wednesday. 

Picha Mtaani

Picha Mtaani which was launched on 7/12/09 at 1000hrs outside Hilton Hotel is a collection of photos taken by Bonface Mwangi an award winning photo journalist. His photos capture the electioneering period aka campaign period, election day and post election violence that occurred after our disputed 27/12/2007 polls. Hence this pictures show a chronological account of the events before and after the polls.
I have had the occasions to see exhibition of his works before. This previous exhibitions were being held in what I would term as 'private open spaces' namely; the Alliance Francaise, Goethe Institut, The Godown and The National Museums of Kenya. Also, his pictures can be found on just a band song 2012.
However, what I like is that Picha Mtaani has embraced a new concept.This is the concept of exhibiting his photos in a public open space i.e. outside the Hilton Hotel. This gives the wider society and not the tourists or affluent persons a chance to consider his works and reflect as a nation on the events that lead to the post election violence.
This exhibition from my own perspective is that it is meant to spur us into conversations with ourselves and with one another. I could not help noticing that it had realized this objective as I went to see the exhibition on a Tuesday night (08/12/2009). I could see Kenyans from all walks of life engaging each other in conversations as to what might have possibly gone wrong.
This is a wonderful concept and I can only thank the UNDP, Picha Mtaani and the whole group behind this concept for what they are doing.