If you are a student of history, you may have surmised by now that power is transient. Today it is here tomorrow it’s gone.
One day, you are a very big and powerful person calling all the shots and the next you are a mere nobody and you’ve joined the ranks of hoi polloi.
And this cuts across the good and the bad. Hitler at one time commanded an army of millions of soldiers, had ambitions of conquering the whole of Europe followed by the entire world I suppose. Ditto Mussolini.
Closer home, and more recently, we had Robert Mugabe who had all the good intentions when he took over in Zimbabwe until power got into him – and Gucci Grace too, as the wife was referred to due to her expensive tastes.
We had a man from Zaire, Mobutu Seseko who did not have one good bone. And his neighbour too – Bokassa - who crowned himself an emperor at huge expense when his countrymen did not have food.
That’s just a sample of people whom power turned into monsters. We have many good people who ascended to power but they remained rooted to the ground: Nelson Mandela in South Africa will suffice for now as an example of the good type.
You might have realised by now that I haven’t mentioned our leadership here because, whichever way I turn my foot, I will step on someone’s toes. So I will settle for generalities for now.
What bothers me is how quickly people, when they acquire power, forget what it feels like to be out in the cold. They acquire power and forget that their time to be out of power will soon knock on their doors.
I have been seeing fellows who have acquired power in recent past showing off on their social media platforms their newly acquired toys. Naturally, their sons and daughters take after them.
We have seen sons of big shots taking selfies in Monaco, watching Formula One with their girlfriends yet a couple of years back they thought that Formula One is some form of powdered baby food.
They have discovered that all along, they had taste, only that it lay under the surface waiting for some money to awaken that latent desire for good things.
Suddenly, Patek Philipe becomes part of their appurtenances. They drive S class Mercedes Benzes and hop on choppers from their homes in Karen to Naivasha and Kericho.
There is a rumour of a big wig public servant – underline public – who must sleep in his house in northern Rift daily. At the crack of dawn, he hops back to the city. Every. Single. Day.
A friend put it very well: Riches scream but wealth whispers. The people who have made their money legitimately are never on social media showing off their newly acquired cars, with private number plates, or their choppers. They don’t. They merely do their thing and life goes on.
I don’t know the kind of car James Mwangi of Equity drives. Neither the Chandarias. They don’t flaunt their wealth because they don’t need to. But the new moneyed bozos have a deep-rooted fear that people will not recognise them if they don’t flaunt their ill-gotten loot.
The point I am trying to get across is simple: these riches anchored on the current power set up will dry as surely as the sun will rise tomorrow.
If a vindictive government comes along - or merely one that perhaps wants to follow the money trail for the sake of the rest of us - they will find themselves on the receiving end of the power that they abused.
What’s so difficult about internalising such a simple concept? That because you acquired the latest Airbus chopper you think you will escape scrutiny forever?
The time of reckoning is coming. The transiency of power will hit you at one time or another since the power structure must change as a matter of course. Such is life.
-The writer is a communications consultant
