Boniface Mwangi organised a group of graffiti artists to create controversial murals around Nairobi depicting the nation’s political elite as vultures and criticising the populace for voting them into office again and again. Credit: Mike Elkin/IPS

By Mike Elkin
NAIROBI, Nov 21 2012 (IPS)

A new website linking corruption and other scandals to high-ranking Kenyan politicians, created by a team of political provocateurs, has become one of the most-visited web pages in the country.

MaVulture.com, which means “many vultures” in Swahili, aims to collect, condense, and air the past wrongdoings of Kenya’s political class. Going live on Nov. 13, the site is the latest project from activist Boniface Mwangi, known for his political graffiti murals around Nairobi and his photographic exhibitions that documented the violent aftermath of the 2007 presidential elections.

Following a disputed election result in December 2007, riots and politically motivated tribal disputes broke out, leaving around 1,200 people dead and displacing 600,000.

Mwangi, 29, a freelance photographer, was twice awarded, in 2008 and 2010, CNN’s Mohamed Amin Photographic Award, named after a Kenyan photojournalist, for his work covering the post-election violence.

“Yo have y’all checked out mavulture.com?” tweeted Kenyan entertainment magazine Blink. “I think you need to check it out before you cast your vote next year.” Kenyans will be going to the polls to elect a new president in March 2013.

“Thanks for the info, mavulture.com,” tweeted a local twitter user called Msanifu. “I now know why/whom I should not vote for.”

The website so far features profiles on 17 politicians, including Uhuru Kenyatta, the son of Kenya’s first president, a current presidential candidate, and also one of the men under an International Criminal Court investigation for crimes against humanity during the 2007 post-election violence, which Kenyans refer to as “the Violence”.

Money laundering, land grabbing, drug trafficking and murder are just a few of the accusations Mavulture.com pins on its targets. Aside from articles, the site includes videos, infographics on each politician, and Wild-West-style wanted posters available for download. It is financed by anonymous donors.

Mwangi told IPS in an interview at his Nairobi office that the goal of the website was to educate Kenyans about the baggage their political leaders and candidates are carrying leading up to the presidential elections.

“We’re going to put online the records of every person involved in the government, every corruption case they’ve been in, and every accusation about them,” Mwangi said.

“So when you go to vote you’ll have this platform to have an informed perspective. We have grand-scale corruption in this country, and the same guys involved in the corruption have been for the past 49 years. So we can compare them and us. When they say, ‘we are together’, we will see that we are not together. Our kids don’t go to foreign schools, and we don’t have villas in the United Kingdom.”

Boniface Mwangi is known for his political graffiti murals around Nairobi and his photographic exhibitions that documented the violent aftermath of the 2007 presidential elections. Credit: Mike Elkin/IPS

According to Transparency International, the Berlin-based non-governmental organisation that documents global corruption, Kenya’s score in 2011 for perceived corruption was 2.2 out of 10, with 10 being clean. Overall, 153 out of 183 countries on the index ranked as less corrupt than Kenya. Transparency International estimated that corruption is costing Kenya up to 357 million dollars per year.

Mwangi said he moved into political activism out of frustration and anger after witnessing the post-election violence. In 2009 he founded Picha Mtaani, a traveling photo exhibition of the riots and killings, as a way to remind Kenyans of what happened.

Turning his gaze toward corruption, Mwangi then organised a group of graffiti artists to create controversial murals around Nairobi depicting the nation’s political elite as vultures and criticising the populace for voting them into office again and again.

In June, he led a rally that carried 49 black coffins to parliament while in session. Each coffin represented every year the politicians enjoyed impunity since independence in 1963. On them they stenciled, “Bury the vulture with your vote,” and each coffin was labeled with a political scandal.

Authorities painted over many of the graffiti murals in the Kenyan capital, but one of Mwangi’s most iconic images remains intact near the Nairobi city market. In it a man with a vulture head sits on a throne wearing a sly grin with a teacup in one hand and the other handcuffed to a briefcase. The thought cloud above him reads: “They loot, rape, burn and kill in my defence. I steal their taxes, grab land, but the idiots will still vote for me.”

“You know what a vulture does?” asked Nairobi taxi driver Kimani Jong Kimani Nganga as he looked at the mural. “It eats meat. We have had politicians since the elections that have been eating us. So we should change that.”

Mwangi said that he wants to provoke a response among Kenyans, because their apathy toward clear cases of political and financial abuse only emboldens those who seek to take advantage of the system.

“Recently, teachers and doctors were striking over low pay, and the members of parliament sat down and over 30 minutes awarded themselves a pay raise,” Mwangi said.

“There was no uproar. Two hundred people can do this in a country of 40 million people and no one goes to the streets. What do you call that? Zombies, cowards… It defeats logic how people can be slaves to a system and never speak out. People see injustice every day and they watch it happen.”

Fear of the consequences of speaking out, he said, is one of the main reasons for Kenyans’ silence. So Mwangi said he is thinking of planning a protest where everyone will wear masks.

“This country is very small, the majority of the companies are owned by politicians and vultures, so if some people protest they fear repercussions or being fired. With masks, people can show their true colours.”

*Additional reporting by Lucas Laursen

Kenya’s first openly homosexual candidate David Kuria Mbote is running for public office. Credit: Mike Elkin/IPS

By Mike Elkin
Nov 5 2012 (IPS)

During an interview at the Hilton Hotel in downtown Nairobi, David Kuria Mbote, Kenya’s first openly homosexual candidate for public office, stresses that his campaign will not be only about gay rights.It is, he said, about tearing down the structural barriers in healthcare, education, and the economy that harm all Kenyans.

“We have many people who are trapped in the cycle of poverty,” he told IPS.

“My county Kiambu is not the poorest county in Kenya, but those who are poor in Kiambu are really, really poor, and many times they cannot escape that cycle of poverty. What we want to do is create small projects, like rabbit farming for example, to help them break that cycle. Once they can do this they will be more able to work their way to a better life.

“Another point of my platform is second chances, especially for people addicted to drugs and alcohol. Your life is not lost just because everyone has written you off. If I had believed the normal conceptions about people like me, I would have given up on myself. So I want to tell people not to give up.”

In a country where homophobia is the norm and most homosexuals keep their sexual orientation secret, Kuria, a 40-year-old activist, is running as an independent candidate for a senate seat in Kiambu County, north of Nairobi, in the March 2013 elections.

He is not only running against two veteran politicians, but against the prevailing view that homosexuality is repulsive.

In various polls taken in Kenya over the past five years, more than 90 percent of respondents said homosexuality went against their beliefs. And while the 2010 constitution aims to “preserve the dignity of individuals and communities and to promote social justice and the realisation of the potential of all human beings,” the pre-constitution penal code criminalises homosexual activity with up to 14 years in prison.

While very few sentences are carried out, there have been many cases of police officers demanding bribes from homosexuals seeking to avoid arrest, according to Kuria.

HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment is one of Kuria’s main issues, arising from his work as co-founder of the Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya, an umbrella organisation. Kuria said that Kenyan doctors turned away homosexual patients, and that gay men were poorly educated in HIV prevention. In one case, he said, a nurse called the entire staff on the floor to come see the gay man.

According to the United Nations, as of last December 1.6 million out of around 40 million Kenyans were living with HIV – more than in the United States, Canada, Britain, and France combined. Kuria said that non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and cancer also need new treatment policies.

In Kenya, the only openly gay public figures are a few activists, including Kuria. When IPS asked him why he went public in a society so averse to his sexuality, he cited an experience trying to pressure the National AIDS Commission to include gay men as an HIV risk group.

“At first the woman in charge told us we were attention-seekers. But after they released the Kenya AIDS survey and modes of transmission, they started seeing the things that we were telling them: that gay men were a high HIV risk group, and that this needed to be addressed.

“And this same lady that called us attention-seekers became so pro-active for us it amazed me. It showed me that people could change. Witnessing that shift pushed me to do more,” he said.

Kuria’s frankness in public about his sexual orientation shocked many, especially considering that between the ages of 13 and 27, Kuria was preparing to become a Jesuit priest, graduating with degrees in theology and philosophy. Since leaving the seminary, he has earned an MBA at the University of Nairobi and this December he is scheduled to receive a master’s degree in finance.

“They call me the candidate with issues,” he said, laughing. “They don’t say I’m gay, they say I have issues. At the beginning I was worried people would see me only as gay, but after 30 or so public meetings, people are willing to listen. Whether they vote for me is another story, but at least they are listening.”

Countering African society’s take on homosexuality, however, will not be easy. Mike Waters in South Africa is the only openly gay member of parliament on the continent. And current Kenyan prime minister and presidential candidate Raila Odinga said during a speech in November 2010 that homosexuals should be arrested, adding that there was no need for gay couples because there were more women than men in Kenya.

In mid-October the UK-based gay rights advocacy group Kaleidoscope Trust invited Kuria to speak at a seminar about leadership. He spoke there with Christopher Robert Smith, Britain’s first openly gay MP.

“He just told me to stick to the message, and that if the message was credible people would listen,” Kuria said.

“David is an inspirational and very brave man who is willing to stand up and be counted on a continent where for generations gay people have been forced to keep their heads down or risk physical attack or worse,” Lance Price, executive director of the Kaleidoscope Trust, told Oxford University’s student newspaper.

On Facebook and Twitter, Kuria’s campaign has stirred many hateful comments. And he recently received an email saying “Rest in Peace”, although it came from the United States. But he said he has not experienced many problems with homophobia.

At the moment, Kuria does not travel with security, but he said that might change if he starts polling well close to election day.

He said, however, that voters will look past their own prejudices come March.

“I think people will see me as a political outsider, with no roots in the establishment,” he said.

“I am not going to continue any of the establishment practices in terms of corruption or tribalism. So if the country is ready for a change, then I am as much of a change as they can get.”