By Judy Munyinyi

A rotund, little Viking known as Hagar the Horrible sets out on a mission to answer a question that has baffled him for years. He overcomes many obstacles including crossing vast oceans and climbing high mountains in roaring blizzards. Finally he stands in the presence of the great god of war, Odin.

Now he can ask the question that has troubled his mind for so long.

"What do women want?"

Imagine his surprise when Odin sighs wearily and replies… "You’re asking me?"

Flash forward to Kenya in the 21st century and replace ‘women’ with ‘Kenyans’.

What’s that noise? Just the sound of frustrated gods clapping hands to foreheads and echoing Odin.

A more changeable people than Kenyans I do not know.

So, what do Kenyans, (not the international community, not politicians, not NGOs with vested interests in issues) want?

Assuming we are just like other human beings, and borrowing from Abraham Maslow’s theory on the hierarchy of needs, it is safe to assume that most of us want to have our basic needs met. And our basic needs include food, shelter and security.

And now that we’re on the topic of security, let’s talk about Major-General Hussein Ali our new Postmaster General and immediate former Commissioner of Police, who was relieved of his duties allegedly because of his lack of respect for human life…what with extra-judicial killings and what not.

This is what many think of the police force Ali presided over – an inveterate killing machine: Political responsibility means that he must take the blame for all the mistakes made by the people under his command, just as he took credit for all the good things his people did.

From what I have deduced from the myriad articles in the Press, Ali is intelligent. He is restrained. He is commanding. He has made enemies because he has fought crime seriously. His peers respect him. Some of his former colleagues were glad to see him go because they could not stand his authoritarian way of doing things. The army is probably going to promote him…

I do not know about you, but these sound like (mostly) positive attributes. And yet despite them we reject him on the say-so of one who does not live in this country? Why? Because we do not know what we want.

Or perhaps more accurately, we do not know what’s good for us. We want someone who is ruthless with crime/criminals but we also expect him to treat our friends/brothers/sons with kindness even when they are the criminals. And when he delivers on reducing crime rates and bringing dangerous situations quickly under control, we turn against him and accuse him of not being sufficiently sensitive to the rights of those in the wrong.

It is called trying to eat your cake and have it.

The gods will continue slapping their foreheads for a while.

That said, once in a while something comes along that restores my faith in our country and some of its systems. And in this while, it is the sentencing of John Cardon Wagner and his two ‘pimpettes’ to many years in jail. Yeah, Kenya!

I don’t so much care about Wagner but I’m delighted — truly — at the conviction of those women.

And let this be a lesson to all the sex perverts out there who see our country as a soft target for their crazy ideas about sex. This was one of the first tests of the Sexual Offences Act and I am glad to see it has a stiff penalty. Let there be no hope of parole, pardon, or clemency for any sexual offenders. Be they Kenyans or foreigners.

And let there not be any talk of Wagner serving his jail term in America (prisoner swap programmes) — the children he defiled are Kenyan, not American.

It was bizarre for Nyaguthii and Nyawira who, in hoping for a lighter punishment, placed the single mother card on the table. What were they thinking? How dare they? Such a slap on the face to all right-thinking parents to hear someone say, "Have mercy on me because I am a single mother, which is why I am selling someone else’s child…"

Six little words for you my sisters. Shame on you! Serves you right.