The
idea that any of the presidential contenders speaks for me is
ludicrous. When was the last time they allowed a simple thing like
hunger or ill-health to fester for days at a time? When they hunger, as
Prof Anyang' Nyong'o was wont to remind us, they will spend thousands on
a single meal for themselves. When they ail, even if it is a mild flu,
they will check themselves into Nairobi's finest medical establishments
or swan off to South Africa, India or the United States. While I must
scrounge and save every single penny I earn in order to prepare for the
day when the responsibilities of fatherhood and family weigh heavily on
my shoulder, these men and women can count on the ever-open purse of the
Government of Kenya, to monetarily smooth the way for their
scions' education, basic or otherwise at institutions of learning where
proteges are not lumped together like sardines in a can.
If they can claim with straight faces that they understand my pain whenever I am humiliated and my life gravely endangered when I ride the death-traps that are Nairobi's PSV's, or when I have to grovel at the feet of my pitiless landlord, mama mboga, butcher, water-meter reader, garbage-collector, watchmen and pastor demanding his ten percent tithe, then they would be better off challenging the Americans to the Best Actor Oscar than standing for election to succeed Mwai Kibaki in 2013.
Not one of them lost a step when burying the late Prof George Saitoti or the late Joshua Orwa Ojode, speaking out of the sides of the mouths about "honouring the legacies of their lives" and playing it straight with each other. Despite the fine declamations at the late politicians' funerals, Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto remain in the cross-hairs of the ICC Prosecutor and their trial at The Hague-based International Criminal Court may have been postponed to accommodate the general election but it will not be cancelled; Mutava Musyimi is still determined to make it easier for Old School politicians to keep playing games they have perfected since 2008 on the ability and capacity to cross the floor of Parliament without facing any sanction; Aden Duale sees nothing wrong in labelling his erstwhile colleagues in the Orange Democratic Movement as "wakora" while he flirts shamelessly with William Ruto and Isaac Ruto on the inaptly acronymed URP. All of them have failed to take the brave step of reminding the thieving members of their class that the Consolidated Fund is not the MPs' piggy bank but a national resource that is to be managed with prudence and foresight, or to prevent them from treating the Constitution - Kenya's "mother of all laws" - as a list of suggestions to be taken or ignored at will whenever it suits their fancy.
They have all utterly failed to offer Kenyans a vision of the possibilities that Kenya could seize and the future it could enjoy. [Possibly] vast oil and water quantities lie beneath the barren land in Turkana but the obsession of the politicians is how the spoils from this bounty may be shared among themselves. The Chinese and a host of other investors are jostling to put money down for the LAPSSET Project but the politicians have singularly failed to even attempt to find a solution to the Coast Land Question that is the principal bugbear of the Mombasa Republican Council. Meanwhile, scores of Kenyans are added to the growing statistics of death and injury on our shiny new highways of death, but our contenders refuse to hold their constituents' feet to the fire by laying the blame where it must - reckless drivers, reckless pedestrians and reckless Kenyans.
Prof George Saitoti, perhaps due to the shock of the event or the manner in which the Professor of Politics sprang the matter on him, mangled the Queen's English on his way his "There come a time" Speech. Now is such a time and it is time that Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka, Raila Odinga, Martha Karua, Raphael Tuju, Musalia Mudavadi, William Ruto, Moses Wetangula, Peter Kenneth, Mutava Musyimi, Uhuru Kenyatta, Cyrus Jirongo and the rest of them started atoning for their grave sins against Kenyans by withdrawing their candidacies to succeed Mwai Kibaki to State House. Their energies are best spent reversing the mess that has been left behind by their wayward charges, including the fat pay-cheques they saw fit to award themselves. When the history of Kenya is finally written, and this period is placed in the proper historical context, none of the candidates will come out smelling of roses; more like the deposits in Dandora.
If they can claim with straight faces that they understand my pain whenever I am humiliated and my life gravely endangered when I ride the death-traps that are Nairobi's PSV's, or when I have to grovel at the feet of my pitiless landlord, mama mboga, butcher, water-meter reader, garbage-collector, watchmen and pastor demanding his ten percent tithe, then they would be better off challenging the Americans to the Best Actor Oscar than standing for election to succeed Mwai Kibaki in 2013.
Not one of them lost a step when burying the late Prof George Saitoti or the late Joshua Orwa Ojode, speaking out of the sides of the mouths about "honouring the legacies of their lives" and playing it straight with each other. Despite the fine declamations at the late politicians' funerals, Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto remain in the cross-hairs of the ICC Prosecutor and their trial at The Hague-based International Criminal Court may have been postponed to accommodate the general election but it will not be cancelled; Mutava Musyimi is still determined to make it easier for Old School politicians to keep playing games they have perfected since 2008 on the ability and capacity to cross the floor of Parliament without facing any sanction; Aden Duale sees nothing wrong in labelling his erstwhile colleagues in the Orange Democratic Movement as "wakora" while he flirts shamelessly with William Ruto and Isaac Ruto on the inaptly acronymed URP. All of them have failed to take the brave step of reminding the thieving members of their class that the Consolidated Fund is not the MPs' piggy bank but a national resource that is to be managed with prudence and foresight, or to prevent them from treating the Constitution - Kenya's "mother of all laws" - as a list of suggestions to be taken or ignored at will whenever it suits their fancy.
They have all utterly failed to offer Kenyans a vision of the possibilities that Kenya could seize and the future it could enjoy. [Possibly] vast oil and water quantities lie beneath the barren land in Turkana but the obsession of the politicians is how the spoils from this bounty may be shared among themselves. The Chinese and a host of other investors are jostling to put money down for the LAPSSET Project but the politicians have singularly failed to even attempt to find a solution to the Coast Land Question that is the principal bugbear of the Mombasa Republican Council. Meanwhile, scores of Kenyans are added to the growing statistics of death and injury on our shiny new highways of death, but our contenders refuse to hold their constituents' feet to the fire by laying the blame where it must - reckless drivers, reckless pedestrians and reckless Kenyans.
Prof George Saitoti, perhaps due to the shock of the event or the manner in which the Professor of Politics sprang the matter on him, mangled the Queen's English on his way his "There come a time" Speech. Now is such a time and it is time that Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka, Raila Odinga, Martha Karua, Raphael Tuju, Musalia Mudavadi, William Ruto, Moses Wetangula, Peter Kenneth, Mutava Musyimi, Uhuru Kenyatta, Cyrus Jirongo and the rest of them started atoning for their grave sins against Kenyans by withdrawing their candidacies to succeed Mwai Kibaki to State House. Their energies are best spent reversing the mess that has been left behind by their wayward charges, including the fat pay-cheques they saw fit to award themselves. When the history of Kenya is finally written, and this period is placed in the proper historical context, none of the candidates will come out smelling of roses; more like the deposits in Dandora.
No comments:
Post a Comment