KANU lives. Sigh.

Charles Keter and Sunjeev Kour Birdi, popularly known as Sonia Birdi, are Members of Parliament. The initials "MP" are attached to their names. They are members, too, of the United Republican Party, URP, whose party leader is the Deputy President. They are members of the URP parliamentary party and serve on parliamentary committees. Mr Keter has been out of the limelight since he raised concerns at various forums over the public procurement for the Standard Gauge Railway, SGR, which is well underway. Googling Sonia Birdi seems to reveal little of note.

A video allegedly featuring the two MPs is doing the rounds in which they are depicted as attempting to bully policemen at a weighbridge to let through a particular lorry. Someone who bears a striking resemblance to Mr Keter is videoed making utterances of a threatening nature with someone who looks like Ms Birdi urging him on with unprintable words of encouragement. Voices in the background, presumed to be those of policemen, are heard arguing that their mandate is to enforce the law to which the belligerents in the video argue that it is they who make the law. We can only infer that the intended meaning is that those who make the law know it better than the ones who enforce it, and that it is the makers' interpretation that must prevail and not that of the law's enforcers.

We will stay as far away from making any conclusions about the behaviour of the MPs at the weighbridge; that we shall leave in the capable hands of clinical psychiatrists, consulting psychologists and epidemiologists of note. We will, however, bear in mind that there is a generation of Kenyans who never witnessed the KANU way of doing things who were given a master class of the KANU way from that video. The Jubilee government's spin doctors will have to work fast to persuade gullible Kenyans that the events depicted in the video are not symptomatic of the re-assertion of the KANU way in government. The Jubilee hash-tag army has to erase the impression in the mind of the public that #TeamJubilee is not the KANU wolf in Jubilee sheep's clothing.

The KANU way has certain pillars. For instance, institutions are irrelevant; all one needs is a strong man with the will to get things done. Another is the propensity for eliding the law and applying an interpretation of rules and regulations for the expedient resolution of problems. A third is the unstinting belief in the power of connections; with the right connections in the right places and with the right leverage, there isn't a problem that cannot be fixed. Finally, there is the hubris that comes with election or nomination to high office; it is inconceivable to the elected or the nominated that the initials "MP" would have very little purchase in the resolution of a law and order problem. The honorific is a badge of honour that must not only be respected, but feared and obeyed in equal measure. The drama at that weighbridge is not the first one involving our respected elected representatives and it will not be the last.

One of the reasons why the KANU way worked was because of the party's status as the ruling party in the period between 1982 and 1991, that is, when Kenya was a de  jure one party state. Everyone was a party member, whether they wanted to or not, and at the top of the party machinery in the grassroots was the KANU MP to whom everyone owed obeisance and obedience. Policemen at weighbridges, magistrates and prosecutors all took their cue from the MP about what was lawful and what was not. In some parts of Kenya, the KANU way still prevails, thirteen years after KANU ceased to exist as a credible national party. Yet its philosophy prevails. MPs throwing their weight around at weighbridge stations are proof that KANU may be going the way of the mighty moa, but its insidious software, its malign nature, lingers like the aftermath of a skunk attack.