Short and Brutish

Baraka woke up early. He was very excited about the “job”.

This would be his first job since graduating from high school two years earlier. He had given up on employment and had just been helping his sister cultivate the family's small holding farm.

Once in a while, a farmer needed some heavy lifting done and hired the local youth for a day or two. Then Baraka would earn a few shillings.

So, when his schoolmate Muriu told him about the job, Baraka was excited at the prospect of making some money and contributing to the family expenses.

The job was for three days at the main business center of the area, some four kilometers from Baraka’s home. Baraka would earn 500 shillings per day.

According to Muriu, the local “recruiter” for the job, their Member of Parliament would provide the “workers” with transport to the venue of the meetings, and lunch. And they would be paid 500 shillings per day.

****

Baraka was among the first people to arrive at the pickup point. About half an hour later, a ramshackle of a bus was driven to the venue. This would provide transport for the recruits.

Interestingly, Muriu had not provided a job description of the task ahead. Baraka and the others only knew there was a job to be done.

As they waited for the 4 km journey to start, Muriu instructed the hired young men on what was expected of them. “Kazi yenu huko ni kupiga makelele,” (Your job there is to make noise) Muriu told them. He dished out 200 shillings to the hecklers. A down payment of sorts.

Muriu divided the hired hecklers into two groups. “The people to my right are group A while those to my left are group B.” He instructed them to occupy opposite sides of the venue.

They were to stand together to make a mighty noise, but they should not make it too obvious that they were together.

“We need to work in unity as one, without making it obvious that we are organized,” said Muriu. “The idea is to create the impression that we all came to the meeting individually.”

The heckling would not be spontaneous. The recruits were to look out for a signal from Muriu.

He would wave a red cloth in a circular motion. At that, group A would start heckling. “Shout anything – ‘Go Home..’ ‘We don’t want your politics’ ‘Stop lying to us…’ Anything to drown our opponents’ voices.”

After a minute or so, group B would join in the shouting, raising it to new levels.

****

These meetings are unpredictable. One never knows what to expect.

When the MP’s opponent rose to speak, the response went as planned. Then the unexpected happened.

Muriu and his people did not know that the opposition too had hired hecklers. When Muriu’s gang shouted the opposition down, another group of hecklers answered and threatened them.

This second group was bigger than Muriu’s and was ready, not just for a war of words, but for a physical fight.

They shouted Muriu’s team down and threatened to teach them a lesson for disrupting the meeting. And that’s when chaos reigned. The opposition lads moved as one towards Muriu’s boys.

When Muriu’s boys realized they were outnumbered, they took off. Perhaps due to his inexperience, Baraka did not run and found himself amid the melee.

Then the police moved in, to break the fight, they said.

Baraka was cornered. Then shots rang out. Baraka went down.

Some members of the public rushed him to a nearby health center, but he was declared dead on arrival. A postmortem indicated that Baraka died of gunshot wounds.

Baraka’s family and friends blamed the police for his death. The police blamed “unruly youth” and politicians’ bodyguards.

Pressed further, the police pledged to investigate the death. “No stone will be left unturned,” … the usual refrain from the police.

After a while, everyone, except the family, will forget the issue, and life will continue

… until the next heckler job.

****

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