Monday, June 09, 2014

Enough with the crazy.

For once, this blogger really believed a day would end without having to wander into the wheres and whereby of Kenyan politicians and that category of fecal matter that almost always mean one is afflicted, terribly so, by a severe case of the runs, and why the two elements seem to resemble each other more and more each day. It has been over a year but one wouldn't know that the general election is over. Raila Odinga and Uhuru Kenyatta have been tugging and pulling at the IEBC-bone as if they are still locked in a fight-to-the-death general election. Raila Odinga's Boston sojourn doesn't seem to have driven sense into his political mind.

The President, sadly, seems to be reacting to, as near as we can relate it, the heckling of a bored village crazy man. Now, every now and then, the village weirdo says something germane; it is rare, but it happens. But it is never the business of the village chief, or even the village headmaster, to pay the weirdo any mind. That is done by his ardent acolytes, the hangers-on who seem to live for the opportunity to ensure that the village headman/headmaster does not lose face.

In Kenya, supplicating acolytes have thrived in the regimes of Mzee and Baba. They seem to have come to a bad end in the age of Baba Jimmi; though a few managed to sneak through the gates when no one way paying attention. However, in the #TeamDigital Era, they seem to have made a storming comeback. Some of these characters are pretty easy to spot: all bombast and not much else, mouths-for-hire for whom anything goes. But there is a sleeker version these days, one that would put the late Mvita Warhorse or the ailing Mathioya to shame for how they do their business without batting an eyelid.Those with memories like steel traps will remember that Nassir and Kamotho were not blindly loyal; they were simply protecting their vast interests, and their interests were vast.

The new crop of sycophants don't seem to do anything of value, whether it is to them or to the men they are shouting themselves hoarse. They do not seem to run vast, vertically integrated enterprises on which hundreds or thousands of livelihoods depend. They do not seem to command political constituencies of such import their voices must always be given a hearing. But they are sharp, well-spoken and committed to their men. They are deployed with effectiveness to TV studios and radio stations to make sure that the message is delivered in a certain way.

But behind the suave suits, the elegant and flowery language, there is nothing but emptiness. They do not seem to have a unified theory of where they want their man to go; he doesn't seem to know either. And so, Kenyans, for a year and two months have been held hostage to the quarrel about whether the IEBC should be disbanded or it should see Kenya through the 2017 elections. Conveniently, neither Raila Odinga nor Uhuru Kenyatta is going to bang on about the starvation deaths that are slowly but surely rubbing the shine off slogans such as Africa Rising or Kenya Vision 2030.

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