The Village Wire with Man Man

The thing about being friends with politicians is that you always have money to burn. All you need to do is mouth work; say all things nice about them and voila, the dough is in your pocket.

This is a discovery I made not long after I dropped out of school.

Pascal, the village storyteller, has elevated this into an art form. As he will tell you, there is no better time to raid the politicians’ chest than in the run-up to the General Election.

Right now in Kimbilili County there are a dozen or so men angling for one position or the other, and I can assure you that money has been flowing, nice and easy. All you need is to be a member of the said politicians’ inner circle.

As I have stated before, I am Mheshimiwa Pora Mali’s man on the ground. Lately, however, I have been on the verge of ditching him. His ship is sinking faster than the Titanic, or so I thought.

Word of mouth

In the village we do not have opinion polls, the kind that you see in the papers every now and then, but we have the equally reliable word of mouth. And   if I were Mheshimiwa Pora Mali, I would have started entertaining thoughts about life after Parliament already. Mkombozi, the former high school principal has endeared himself with the electorate and seems set to take over as the Kimbilili MP next year.

After the disastrous meeting we had in June, Mheshimiwa Pora Mali is yet to return to the village. He has refused to heed my warning that things are thick on the ground.

But that is the least of my worries as I still get about Sh10,000 every month from him. This is the money I believe is meant for the CDF projects.

Under Mheshimiwa Pora leadership, the constituency has seen little or no development. The CDF trust is like his personal bank account. Most of the money, as I said before, is spent paying rent for Mheshimiwa’s numerous mistresses. Some of it also goes to college girls who don’t mind nourishing Mheshimiwa’s rapacious carnal appetites.

Mheshimiwa Pora Mali has put me in the CDF committee and I am supposed to be paid Sh20,000 (which has since been reduced by half) as my salary and I am a worried man.

Recently a group of professionals went to the authorities to demand an inquest into of Pora Mali’s handling of the CDF money. Waving placards they marched from Mambo Moto all the way to the Maili Sita Divisional office. They demanded to see the District Officer, who was curiously in the office that day, and he promised to see to it that the matter was investigated. I am told the Ethics and anti-corruption people are already on it.

Of course I told Pora Mali about it and you should have heard his voice tremble like at the other end of the line. You see the only standing structures Pora mali has built using the CDF cash are two pit latrines at Mambo Moto primary.

Dropped bombshell

They cost a cool Sh2,000,000. Pora Mali had promised to repair the main road between Maili Sita and Kimbilili town. It is still looking like the surface of Mars, five years after his homecoming party. Let us not even talk about the proposed bursary scheme that was supposed to be financed by the CDF.

Then two days ago Pora Mali calls me.As usual he is full of surprises. Yes, he will not be running for the Kimbilili constituency seat, he announces. My heart started flapping with excitement — finally after ten years of taking people for a ride, Pora Mali had seen the light.

Then he dropped the bombshell, he wasn’t running for the parliamentary seat because he was taking a shot, the Kimbilili County’s governor’s post. He did not give me a chance to say anything. He just talked and talked for over thirty minutes. The plans were already in place, he told me.

He had over Sh5,000,000 waiting to be splashed and as usual I was supposed to be the man ensuring the smooth flow of things on the ground. When he stopped talking my ears were aching from all the listening. But my Sh5,000,000, that is a lot of money to disregard, no matter how dirty the job is.I have been Pora Mali’s hatchet man for long ,for less. Here is finally a chance to make something out of it.

I will not lie to you, as I headed to Maila Sita town after the 30-minute talk with Mheshimiwa I was thinking about a car. Perhaps a Probox would be a good start.

Given the state of the roads in Kimbilili, a Probox would be the ideal vehicle to move around the county to spread the word about Pora Mali’s second coming, or is it third. This is what I was going to tell Pora Mali when we meet for a strategy meeting in the city next week.

Yes, the guy asked me to bring with me ten of his loyalists to the city for two days, where we would discuss all that was needed to see that Pora Mali becomes the first governor of Kimbilili.

Whatever happened to the CDF inquiry? Isn’t Pora Mali afraid his foes might use it against him? Time will tell, but for now we are ready to launch what looks to be the biggest campaign Kimbilili has ever seen.

Did I tell you I love my life?