On the morning of 30th May 2022, celebrated gospel musician, minister, speaker and independent aspirant for the Presidency in the 9th August 2022 Kenya General Elections, Reuben Kigame, addressed the press in Nairobi. The night before, 10pm to be precise, the Eldoret based entrepreneur, widely admired for his virtuous public persona and for defying blindness, had received an email from Kenya’s elections body (IEBC) chairman Mr Wafula Chebukati, disqualifying him from running for Presidency. (For full series of events read:) Reuben Kigame’s ‘I am here to defy’ speech delivered that Monday morning was not only stirring, but also pricked at the consciousness of Kenyans, urging the patriots among us to move beyond the optics of our pride in and defense of the Kenyan constitution as the most progressive, yet, in these parts of Africa.
Full transcript: Reuben Kigame’s ‘I am here to defy’ speech
We are bona fide citizens of Kenya that deserve the highest respect. Why is it that The President would actually have his eyes more on honorable Raila Odinga and the others and not even care that for the first time in Kenya’s history there was a blind man running for office?
That is how inclusive we are.
That is how we have become as a society.
As it were, we don’t care if justice is served or not; We don’t care if people’s rights are trampled upon or not. It’s no longer an issue – it’s almost like it’s a privileged position to sit with [the] chairman [of IEBC]. It is almost an issue for me to be addressed as a bona fide presidential aspirant and so I’m here to defy that kind of society.
I’m here to defy that kind of exclusion.
I am here to defy that kind of treatment not just for me, but for any candidate independent or otherwise.
I’m here to defy undemocratic spaces and placements in this society.
Leadership is not just for a few families.
Leadership is not just for a few elect people who are more Kenyan than others.
Leadership is for everybody and I need to be at the table being given an equal chance to represent not just persons living with disability but everybody that believes in justice for all.
I will not take sitting down the premature disqualification without a hearing. And I say today we must bring an end to partisanism.
We must bring an end excuse me we must bring an end to partisan politics.
We must bring an end to exploitation.
We must bring an end to bad governance and it begins with fair process.