Allow me to retort

No matter how hard or fiercely the cartels fight or resist, their time is up.

The Majestic People of Nairobi from all walks of life, races, creeds, religions, faiths, gender, social classes and ideological orientations are fully behind the Transformation Team.

Malicious lies, distractions, diversionary tactics and inept propaganda churned out by hungry and desperate armies of cartel surrogates and messengers hiding under nom de plumes, fake handles and professional monikers such as "media personality," "investigative journalist," or "communications consultant" will neither succeed nor slow us down.

A patriotic people united in and for a cause will never be defeated!

The Majestic People of Nairobi - both locally and abroad - are determined, disciplined, committed and boldly marching ahead.

We are going to close the deal by 10:00 a.m. on Election Day.

Nairobi City County number 47 shall be free of the cartels, clean from garbage and prosperous under our Transformation Team. Viva Nairobi! Viva!—Miguna Miguna

car·tel kärˈtel/ noun: cartel; plural noun: cartels an association of manufacturers or suppliers with the purpose of maintaining prices at a high level and restricting competition.

In our peculiarly Kenyan context, "cartel" is not used in the same sense it is used when the breathless media talk of "Colombian drug cartels" or the business press talks about the "energy cartel" composed of the Government-sponsored KenGen, Kenya Power, Geothermal Development Corporation, Ketraco, Kenya Pipeline Corporation and National Oil Corporation of Kenya. It is used to connote a group consisting of corrupt, ineffective, moronic and tribalistic elected representatives and their enablers. Enablers include cartoonists, bloggers, paid newspaper editors and others who dare challenge the wit or wisdom of the candidate.

The word used to describe the enablers is "surrogates" that is, in online interactions with the candidate, the enablers take on the persona of their cartel masters and adopt the cartels' positions. The surrogates are hungry and desperate, presumably channeling the hunger and desperation of the cartels because, by "10:00 a.m. on Election Day," the deal, presumably the destruction of the cartels and the defeat of their plans, will be sealed by the candidate and his Transformation Team. 

(I use the word "candidate" loosely; the election date has not bee announced and the submission of nomination papers to the electoral commission is yet to be undertaken. For the purposes of my diatribe (noun: diatribe; plural noun: diatribes a forceful and bitter verbal attack against someone or something), I shall use it as I believe the candidate intended to use it: a statement of his intentions to contest the governor's office at the next general elections in 2017.)

Those who have regularly read this blog know that my disillusionment with the incumbent governor is total and though I enjoy the colourful antics of the Senator, I don't believe that he is a good candidate to be Nairobi's next governor. I have no views about the suitability otherwise of the Member for Dagoretti South and I am wholly convinced that the chairman of The National Alliance and nominated member of the National Assembly is incapable of contextualising and, therefore, solving the intractable challenges this city faces. As for the former Member for Starehe, her behaviour immediately before and after the death of her estranged common-law husband shows that she is unfit to be elected to the office of governor too.

The candidate promises to release his manifesto "soon" as well as launch a website and publish an "economic blueprint" for Nairobi city. In his latest screed (noun: screed; plural noun: screeds a long speech or piece of writing, typically one regarded as tedious), he promises a prosperous Nairobi free of cartels and garbage. This in addition to his previous promises of public infrastructure and green spaces for young people. Inasmuch as the candidate claims the mantle of independence, he is pretty much no different from the other candidates in the nature of his political promises or in his commitment to being held to account for the promises.

What sets the candidate apart, in a crowded field with bloated egos, is that the size of his ego defies all known laws of nature or politics. He is undoubtedly a very clever man; no one practices law as a barrister, solicitor or mediator for fifteen years or so without having some smarts. No plays a part in the appointment of Kenya's only second Prime Minister without having grey matter of the invaluable kind either. But even compared to the inimitable and colourful Senator of Nairobi City, the candidate's ego defies all logic in that it is almost exclusively founded on his view of himself (hence, I believe the lack of self-aware irony that only the sad ones tend to retweet and "like" their own tweets).

The candidate will never acknowledge that he is not the only one to have read Kenya Vision 2030, the Constitution of Kenya (as well as the former constitution), the Urban Areas and Cities Act, 2011, the Intergovernemtal Relations Act, 2011, the Transition to Devolved Government Act, 2012, the County Governments Act, 2012, or the repealed Local Government Act (including the Bye-laws of the City of Nairobi made under under the repealed Act). He will never acknowledge that those who have read these documents have also comprehended them, perhaps not to his degree of intellectual comprehension, but sufficiently so that we will not be easily hoodwinked by politicians' honeyed words. 

It will probably be the equivalent of an intellectual enema for him to admit that our reading of the political tea-leaves is clear-eyed, and not blinded in a mental darkroom of roiled emotions and paranoia (noun: paranoia a mental condition characterized by delusions of persecution, unwarranted jealousy, or exaggerated self-importance, typically elaborated into an organized system). The only way either of us will know the accuracy of our positions will not be when the deal is sealed on Election Day, but when the returning officer for the election of the Governor of Nairobi City county announces the results of the election. Not a moment sooner. (How this simple understanding of the Elections Act, 2012, escaped an advocate of fifteen years' standing defies logic.)