Singing a revolution song from the rooftop, close to power seat

Last Saturday afternoon, just a stone’s throw from the seat of power, the Nairobi State House, a groovy beat rent the air, springing the assembled crowd to its feet, the thunderous stomping shaking the rooftop of the Africa Alliance of YMCA building.

The departed freedom icon Wangari Maathai smiled from a mural as a lanky youth ambled to where the Chief Justice, Man Willy, was seated, and sang a song that was everyone’s lip:

Nalipa tax Na hata siwezi afford kupanda taxi (I pay tax, and yet I can’t afford to take a taxi)...

The song is called Sheria, its singer, Mandela, the leader of the Sarabi band. The setting was Pawa 254, the creative hub that my friend Bonnie Mwangi has been running for a couple of years.

It seemed rather apt that Mandela should be singing to Man Willy about Sheria, a song that critiques the social and class divisions that breed inequities, as well as the subterfuge of the wealthy in safeguarding their ill-gotten wealth.

 COMMISSIONS OF INQUIRY

All public questioning of its leadership end up in a commission of inquiry. “Lazima abuniwe tume,” Mandela laments.

Before the song crashes to its melodious denouement, it courses through a litany of scandals that have assailed our country: free primary education, maize scandal, Goldenberg and post-election violence.

When Mandela left the stage, I had two questions ringing in my head; one, why that song has not been adopted as our national anthem.

Two, if Mandela and his cronies were aware that the Processional Way, nestling the YMCA building, had only been built recently because the land had been grabbed by a politician who should fuata sheria...