If you were only watching the official news coverage of the inauguration of Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto for their second term, you would be forgiven for thinking that the political crisis that has seized Kenya since August 11 was over. At the Kasarani stadium, local and international dignitaries watched as the incumbent president and deputy president were sworn in, in a ceremony that cost an estimated 384 million Kenya shillings ($3.7m).

But if you are active on Kenyan social media or have been following the story on international media, you would know that the story is a little more complicated. Even though local media refused to cover it, the Kenya police violently suppressed a prayer rally called by the opposition candidate, Raila Odinga, at the Jacaranda grounds in Embakasi.

Startling images of towers of black smoke rising over the city’s largest working-class neighbourhood, while white plumes of tear gas scattered civilians hoping to attend the prayer rallies, circulated on these platforms, even while the mainstream media focused on the more inane details of the swearing-in ceremony.

This dichotomy is symbolic of the deep damage that the 2017 general election has done to Kenya, leaving the country more divided today than it has been, perhaps, since the 1969 Kisumu massacre. One part of the country celebrates what it sees as a political triumph; another part is reeling from a keen sense of disenfranchisement. And a third – the silent majority that doesn’t benefit directly from dominant ethno-nationalisms – witnesses both with palpable concern.

Twenty years of struggle for a new democratic order should not have culminated in this Dickensian dichotomy – this gap between reality and the state-sanctioned narrative.