It was a rally not unlike the hundreds that the ageing Kenyan President, Mr Daniel arap Moi, had presided over during his 24 years in power, with a 50,000-strong crowd allegedly bribed to attend.
But when President Moi stood up to speak, the people went quiet, turned on their heels and walked silently away. Mr Moi sat down, dumbstruck.
All over the country, with an election looming on Thursday, the verdict is the same: Kenyans want change. Mr Moi is constitutionally barred from standing, but his nominated successor, Mr Uhuru Kenyatta - son of Kenya's founding father - is trailing in the polls.
The International Republican Institute gives a 47-point lead to Mr Mwai Kibaki, a former vice-president and head of the National Rainbow Coalition of opposition parties and defectors from Mr Moi's Kanu party. Kenyans can expect their first change of government since independence in 1963.
There are good reasons for discontent with Kanu. Its corrupt rule has turned one of Africa's brightest hopes, a fertile land with hard-working people, into a basket-case. In 1971, Kenya's economic indicators were roughly on a par with Singapore's. Now, according to the World Bank, the average Singaporean earns €24,140 a year, while the average Kenyan earns €340 - the same as in 1963.
More than half the population lives in poverty, at the mercy of violent crime and a plague of preventable diseases.
At the foot of Mr Moi's Nairobi residence sprawls Kibera, east Africa's largest slum, where some 750,000 people live on a heap of smouldering refuse and excrement.
In his occasional, infamous rants, Mr Moi blames rich western countries for much of this misery - Kenya's aid money was frozen four years ago, although only because the politicians invariably stole it.
Although Kenyans respect Mr Kenyatta, they believe he would be merely a puppet of Mr Moi and his cronies.
Last week, on Independence day, Mr Moi announced that he "forgiven" Kenyans the wrongs they had done him. Yet Kenyans do not seem to bear a grudge against Mr Moi. Some even say they will miss such absurdly comic one-liners. But from Thursday, they pray the comedy will end. - (Guardian Service)