Quotable quotes from famous books by the great African writer Chinua Achebe.

“While we do our good works let us not forget that the real solution lies in a world in which charity will have become unnecessary.”

“If you don’t like someone’s story, write your own.”

“Storytellers are a threat. They threaten all champions of control, they frighten usurpers of the right-to-freedom of the human spirit — in state, in church or mosque, in party congress, in the university or wherever.”

“Nobody can teach me who I am. You can describe parts of me, but who I am – and what I need – is something I have to find out myself.”

“There is no story that is not true, [...] The world has no end, and what is good among one people is an abomination with others.”

“The world is large,” said Okonkwo. “I have even heard that in some tribes a man’s children belong to his wife and her family.”  “That cannot be,” said Machi. “You might as well say that the woman lies on top of the man when they are making the babies.”

“Procrastination is a lazy man’s apology.”

“…stories are not always innocent;…they can be used to put you in the wrong crowd, in the party of the man who has come to dispossess you.”

“A man who pays respect to the great paves the way for his own greatness.”

“A toad does not run in the daytime for nothing.”

Compiled by goodreads.com

 

Mentioning this name to anyone who is an avid follower of Zimbabwean news what quickly comes to mind is human rights. With an outstanding law practice background spanning almost thirty years Beatrice stood out to be one of the most fearless women Zimbabwe has ever produced. Even her profile on wikipedia portrays a history of activism complemented with multiple awards for her work. Today she finds herself being bundled into a prison van and wearing a green prison garb similar to those worn by female prisoners in Zimbabwe. Some of the women who wore this same uniform are now free after she successfully defended their rights in the courts of law.

Caught up in her line of work while trying to defends the rights of Prime Minister’s staff during a police raid has led her to appear before a local magistrate at a lower court answering charges of obstruction of justice after a High Court order for her release was ignored. Prison time weakens some and makes other come out strong and I believe Beatrice’s incarceration will make her strong.

I used to read about Beatrice Mtetwa in the papers and my first encounter with this fearless woman was when I found myself at the notorious law and order section at Harare Central Police station. It was in the middle of a grueling and nerve breaking moment when she arrived in the company of members of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights team and I could see hope and confidence coming back to the faces of my colleagues, both men and women. Even though she was not assigned to our case she managed to come in to where we were being grilled to check on us. It was a tense situation, which no man would want to be associated with at that time but Beatrice’s presence changed the tense atmosphere.

In Zimbabwe lawyers like Beatrice have managed to defend successfully the rights of the vulnerable and as the accused yesterday she had her rights fought for by fellow human rights defenders. And if you value the work she has been doing show your support by signing a petition to set her free.

Some queues were short and some were very long and tiring because of the heat. Though in some areas reports of voter apathy marred the Saturday referendum. Where I voted it was peaceful and I only spent a couple of minutes before I left the polling station. At times like these usually you would find people walking in pairs or groups to cast their votes. Maybe there is comfort in numbers or it’s just the fear of being left out in a national event like this, as people will be flashing the pink finger with pride to anyone who cares to see. As everyone was looking forward to going to the polling stations I felt sorry for my fellow citizens who were born here but are still regarded as Aliens. My father helped me to fight that battle some years back before the rejected 2000 referendum polls and that is the reason why I was showing the finger to whoever. This was my second time taking part in a referendum and I got worried when I had to show the back of my folded ballot paper to the polling agents so that they see the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission stamp. My vote is supposed to be a secret but when the ballot paper is so transparent to an extent of revealing where I had put my X I get worried about what it means to whoever sees it. So the after poll chat is always about when the results will come out. Instead of worrying about the implications of the pink finger of the just ended referendum maybe the real worry is now on upcoming presidential polls and if the pink finger will be visible to anyone to see. I hope when that time comes, this constitution we just voted for would have passed, and Aliens will be citizens and pink fingers will be shown without fear.

Elections in Africa have been widely tainted with rigging and manipulation due to the manual system used to tally the votes but as some countries try to move with the times and embrace Information Communications Technologies it seems like a new space for vote manipulation has been created.  Even in first world countries like United States of America electronic voting machine fraud led the to the 2000 Al Gore/Bush election controversy. Some may still argue and say ICTs are the way to go if we are to avoid the three months wait to get election results. But after watching Kenya’s electronic voting system collapse, a dark spell was cast over both the electronic and manual voting systems as the Kenyan vote was put at risk.

The recent elections in Kenya put the system to test in the presidential poll when it failed at the critical moment of need. Election officials were forced to resort to manual registers. A lot of questions are still being asked about how safe your vote is with ICTs. The electronic live streaming of the results crashed on Day 2 of national tallying and overload was blamed for the system crush. Whether it was real overload, or human tampering it still tainted the elections results with accusations of irregularities now being contested in court with one presidential aspirant refusing to concede defeat. Maybe the electoral body in Kenya had so much faith in its electronic system that they never bothered to put a back up plan in the event of the mishap, but those from Odinga’s camp will tell you that after the system failure figures started fluctuating in favor of Uhuru.

A friend of mine in Kenya shared some simple math on the misunderstanding on the issue of votes cast and valid votes, which may lead to an election rerun in Kenya. As reported in the media, results of the votes counted so far in the presidential election stand like this:

” Of those counted at 8:15 am Wednesday, Kenyatta had won just over 2.79 million or 53 percent of valid votes cast against Odinga with 2.20 million or 42 percent, a gap that could still be easily overturned. But a staggering 334,000 ballots were rejected, making up some five percent of votes cast and totaling more than those so far assigned to the third candidate in the race, deputy prime minister Musalia Mudavadi, who has two percent of votes so far.”   – Times of Oman

Here is the math based on the Kenya constitution: Two candidates vying for the position of the Chief. A total of 10 votes are cast. Candidate A gets 4 votes, while B gets 3 votes and 3 votes get rejected. So the valid votes are 7. If you select the winner based on the VALID votes for candidate A you get 4/7×100 = 57%. Candidate B gets 3/7×100= 42%. However, if you calculate based on the total votes cast ( 10) as the constitution says, you get the following: Candidate A gets 4/10 x100 = 40%; Candidate B gets 3/10×100= 30% and the rejected votes ( which also must be counted ) make 3/10X100= 30%. And that is the true picture of the result of this election based on the provisions of Article 138(4)(a)

So according to this explanation I got from her the key words should be votes cast’… and not valid votes. I may not be familiar with the Kenya Constitution but this election law sounds like the one we have here in Zimbabwe.

A tightly contested battle for the presidential seat is currently underway as vote counting begins in Kenya.  Just like Zimbabwe the previous elections held in Kenya saw over a thousand people killed and hundred of thousands displaced by disputed poll results. One of the presidential candidates, Uhuru Kenyatta was indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his alleged role in the ethnic clashes in 2007. Over a third of results counted so far show a lead for Kenyatta and if the outcome remains like that one wonders whether the ICC will come after him and will his supporters allow that to happen.