My flower can never be replaced! Baby Pendo's mother speaks out at BBI launch

No woman should cry for her child, the mother to the late Baby Pendo said when she spoke at Bomas on Monday.

Baby Pendo was killed by police on August 11, 2017, during the post-election violence after the Supreme Court annulled President Uhuru Kenyatta’s re-election.

"A flower was uprooted from my garden and it cannot be replaced.  I can be given another person but not the same person as Pendo. Naomba wanasiasa ikue mwisho kile kilitendeka 2017," An emotional Lencer Achieng said.

"Politicians who lose elections should accept results...even on the BBI Report let us read for ourselves and let us vote Yes or No as we find appropriate," she said.

Achieng asked Kenyans to check and filter whatever comes out of their mouths.

"When you are coming chunga vitu zinatoka kwa ulimu zenu. Msifanye tupigane halafu wewe unasonga mbele na maisha yako," she said.

"Don't leave us with pain and agony. When we are aggrieved.. Look at how the victims are fairing on," she said.

The father of Pendo Joseph Abanta urged Kenyans not to be deceived by politicians.

“Kenyans we are good people, let us not be deceived by politics. Let the blood of my child be the last time somebody loses a life because of politics,” he said.

Abanta urged Uhuru not to forget their family during their trying times.

"Naomba Rais Uhuru vile mumeshikana na Raila Odinga msiachane mkono. Naona BBI italeta mabadiliko kwa maisha yetu. Rais kumbuka familia ya Baby Pendo msituache hivo. Mumetuacha tunateseka,” he said.

Baby Pendo, was bashed by one of the baton-wielding policemen, who had laid siege to her parents’ house.

They were fast asleep when at 12.30 am, the screams of a neighbour under attack by police, woke them up.

Panic-stricken, Pendo’s mother and her husband, Joseph Abanja, hesitated.

Achieng sat still at the edge of the bed. The sofa, which they use to barricade the door against intruders, briefly held back the police.

Not for long. The police, according to the magistrate, shot or lobbed a tear gas canister through a crack in the door, into Baby Pendo’s house.

They bolted the door from the outside. The family of four struggled to escape.

Abanja got out first, straight into the hands of the baton-wielding men.

Then his wife too was forced out by the choking smothering tear gas.