Thousands of odd jobs that the August 9 General Election campaign window created, giving many young people a temporary livelihood, have disappeared.
The first jobs to go down the drain were those of unconventional bloggers. These keypad warriors, armed with phones and data bundles provided for by politicians, would generate all manner of propaganda, responding to competition posts and commenting on their sponsor’s post to make him or her appear popular.
“I was in charge of about 30 young people and each had about 10 social media accounts opened in different names,” reveals Mixson Gitau, from Murang’a County.
“That would translate to at least 300 comments on a single thread and sometimes we could comment more than once, hence making those who recruited us appear serious contenders.”
He says that in a week, he could get three orders from different politicians to blog on their behalf, “sometimes all of them competing for the same seat, such that the very same followers commenting on one thread were the exact ones on the other’s wall”.
Political spies have also been put out of business. Their duty was to infiltrate opponents’ rallies, record speeches, gain intelligence on double-dealers eating from opposing formations and gain crucial logistical information.
Their pay was good, because it also involved being dressed properly and having recording devices and a good phone that could access the competitors’ social media platforms.
The spies “would get entertainment allowances to help them access hotels where the competition’s meetings were being held … and over a bottle of this or that froth, and in the company of either gender, the job would get underway. All this fun goes down the drain until 2027,” says Mwangi wa Njeri, from Maragua town in Murang’a County.
Also losing gigs are councils of elders, who, for cash, invited candidates to join them without following the required procedures for such a cultural undertaking. Others losing poll-related jobs are pastors for hire, who blessed political causes and released outcome prophecies.
For James Kioko, of Thika town, his single-room, iron-sheet house in Kiandutu Estate, Kiambu County, was like a posters store bearing the faces of different contestants.
“Mine was to ensure the posters are mounted on walls, trees and electricity posts,” he said.
“The sponsor would provide me with wheat flour to mix with water and come up with a glue-like mix to hold the posters. For every poster, I would charge Sh5 and in a week, I was doing about 1,000 posters. I mourn the end of these campaigns.”
He says he was nearly the richest person in this estate, earning Sh5,000 a week and “I even thought of starting a money lending enterprise but I feared the threat of defaulters”.
It was also a campaign period when a hefty body and mean looks came in handy, as politicians were after guards to protect them and their meetings.
Charles Mwangi, who contested the Ichagaki ward seat as an independent candidate, says that one such defender would cost Sh1,000 a day, and I would require about five in a single rally”.
The higher the seat a politician aspires for, he says, the higher the bouncer’s fees, with a governor aspirant parting with Sh5,000 per day.
Cheering squad masters armed with vuvuzelas and whistles were better off searching for something else to do as their enterprise has also closed. Along with dancers who would be seen breaking a waist and a leg on top of campaign trucks, it is goodbye to between Sh500 and Sh1,000 a day, free alcohol and, when the confidence of the aspirant is up, lots of nyama choma at roadside joints.
For veterans and budding and startup crooners, it was a kill gone out of hand, because they will no longer earn between Sh10,000 and as high as Sh100,000 each in those caravans.
“It was good business for many of us, but the campaigns left us divided and so is our fan base. We hope that we will find that fortitude to bear the effects and come together again to mend fences among ourselves and with our fans,” he said.
The other job that has gone to ‘waste’ is that of fitting political campaign vehicles with public address systems (PAS), with costs ranging from Sh30,000 to as high as Sh500,000.
“It all depends on the type of speakers, size and power, technology to apply and the truck size,” discloses the proprietor of Sound Systems in Nairobi.
“We handled Kiambu’s gubernatorial aspirant William Kabogo’s system and that of Joseph Wairagu in Murang’a. The two alone made us more than a million shillings richer.”
For the ‘poor’ aspirants, they would borrow PAS from small-scale sound systems entrepreneurs, including from churches, for between Sh10,000 and Sh30,000 per day – another earning window that has now closed.
For printers, it was a boom and they made a killing producing campaign merchandise. But it is now a bust.
“I made Sh700,000 as net profit in these campaigns through printing fliers, leaflets and posters alone. I know of a colleague who has bought a Sh1.8 million plot from the proceeds of printing campaign ware. I wish elections happened every year in this country,” said
Boniface Mwangi, who operates in Nairobi’s River Road.
Drivers were also given branding contracts to display the images and messages of politicians on the rear windows of their vehicles.
For a month, it would cost between Sh3,500 and Sh10,000, depending on the route distance plied.
Bodaboda riders would get full tanks of fuel to escort politicians during campaigns and in the evening get at least Sh500 as pay.
Those with a talent for public speaking were also in great demand to help shape politicians’ messages.
“The politicians would meet these people before any public address to be coached on what to say, how to say it and what voice variations to employ,” says John Kiriamiti of the My Life in Crime novel fame.
“That is why sometimes these politicians look so cosmetic, because they address meetings with crammed scripts, sometimes missing it and messing themselves up.”
Mr Kiriamiti says public speech experts received good pay, especially if the politician won good applause.
A “smart public speech expert would liaise with the cheering squad, the DJ and the dancers to even cheer where not necessary so that the ego of the aspirant can be shored up and in the process the wallet to open wider,” he adds.
The barman will also miss the campaigns because most of the stipends given out in the campaigns would end up in their businesses.
“I was used to groups of 10 youths entering my bar with a Sh1,000 note to buy 10 bottles of Sh100 each worth of alcoholic drinks. It was good business when it lasted,” said Mercy Kamau, a bar owner in Thika town.
“From the comfort of my bar, I have evidence that politicians pay these youths between Sh50 and Sh100.”
In the campaigns were ‘diplomats’, whose value was critical as they were deployed to convince competitors to drop their bids and support another candidate.
This group mostly comprised pastors, village elders, chiefs and their assistants, and respected serving and retired teachers.
“The ‘diplomats’ act more like market brokers. The competitor would agree to drop his bid for, say, Sh300,000, but the diplomat would go and announce that the deal is worth Sh500,000, earning himself or herself a Sh200,000 profit,” revealed a senior officer with the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI).
“Sometimes it would go awry, where the dropping of a bid and transfer of support is paid for, but the ‘seller’ goes right ahead to campaign for the seat. That is when you hear of political deaths for breaching the contract,”
