Next time pee on his dais.

Next time they should pee on the dais. Or introduce its occupants to the tried-and-tested flying toilet phenomenon. We are making a mountain out of the Migori presidential heckling molehill. Okoth Obado, the Migori Governor, and the Migori Pparliamentary group are right to apologise to President Kenyatta, but the National Police Service has lost all perspective if they indeed arrested hecklers" and "stone-throwers" and are determined to prosecute them to the maximum extent of the law.

Yes, next time the disgruntled should pee on the dais or emblazon it in jwala-ful quantities of excreta. This is politics; it was not an attempted assassination. President Kenyatta chose to "visit" a CORD - nay, ODM - stronghold in his "meet the people" tours of Nyanza and Western Kenya. He is the Head of State. He has an absolute right to meet his people. But we should not pretend that his people universally love him when it is quite clear, Migori presidential heckling aside, not everyone holds him quite in the same esteem that ardent acolytes like Moses Kuria do. The next time he chooses to visit a hostile constituency, I hope the hostilities really include pee and excrement.

It is time that we stopped looking at presidents like the demigods they and their people seem to believe they are. It is time we stood up and loudly challenged them. Baba Moi was very good at wagging his finger in our faces. We bore it stoically because even a wisp of dissatisfaction was sufficient to introduce one to the sadistically violent attentions of the Special Branch torturers at Nyayo House or Nyati House. Baba Jimmi chose a different tack: he ignored everyone, heckler or not. (Except to that fellow on that Jamhuri Day whose testicles will not soon forget that while Baba Jimmi was tolerant, his askaris had a very different attitude to in-your-face heckling.) Poor Uhuru Kenyatta; he is neither Baba Moi, in which case he would be feared, or Baba Jimmi, in which case he would take a laid back view of the whole thing.

This is probably sacrilegious to suggest but the President does not deserve respect simply because he is the President. If the presidency did respectful things, then the President would be respected occupant of the office. It doesn't and so he won't. Don't try and tell us that other nations respect their presidents; look at how South Africans make a mockery of that particular social edict. The Kenyan presidency has been accused of corruption and human rights abuses, marginalisation of communities and incompetence in problem-solving. The least the people could do is demonstrate their dissatisfaction with the presidency by heckling, stone-throwing and the new kid on the block, shoe-throwing. If their lives do not improve, and if this lack of improvement is because of the traditional dithering of the presidency, its ministries, departments and agencies, then the next time the President shows up, in addition to the heckling, they should introduce him to the exciting fragrances of flying toilets. Pee and excreta will be appropriate missiles.