The Kenyan MP talks all the way to the bank

By Joseph Maina

The Kenyan MP can be compared to the Ribena berry of advert fame. They both explode. The difference is that while the delicious berry explodes with goodness that nourishes a nation, the lawmaker explodes verbally whenever he faces a crowd. The other major difference is that while the berry can only explode after much concentration, the honourable member does not need to concentrate on anything at all — he just explodes!

He occurs once in every five years, featuring prominently in campaign posters and numerous gatherings while making one fake pledge after another. These pledges are delivered with the austerity of a preacher and sincerity of a loving parent. You elect him in the hope that when he steps into Parliament, it is all paradise as promised.

But immediately he is declared winner, vroom! Once he steps into that fuel-guzzling SUV of his, you won’t meet him again for the next five years!

You will only be lucky to catch sightings of him on TV or in the papers, often pursuing an objective that is of zero interest to you or playing a starring role in this or that scandal.

Instead of airing your concerns in the House, he will only be chatting happily with a colleague or catching some beauty snooze and drooling all over those benches.

During his campaigns, he was this omnipresent, everyday person who even announced his cell phone number, which he claimed to be a 24-hour ‘open line’ for "any of my constituents to reach me in times of need".

Try calling that number right now. To some people, he is the antithesis of everything good. He preaches water but drinks beer. He is master of the fib and doesn’t flinch when telling it. Human beings persist in bemoaning the perceived failings of this super-intelligent being. However, the key to living at peace with your MP lies in understanding a few basic facts that mould him into the person he is.

Rival wikipedia

One is that he is not an ordinary human being. The Kenyan MP is the most advanced member of the primate family, thus making him the most intelligent creature that ever walked on this planet. His mind is so advanced that it could probably rival Wikipedia, and this explains why he seems to know everything. Rumour has it that he was created on the eighth day. Any one of these ‘people’s representatives’ would readily tell you that it is futile for ordinary mortals to vie for this position because contrary to popular belief, a Kenyan MP is not made, but born.

You were either born human or a Kenyan MP. The word brainstorm was probably coined to capture the thinking process of a Kenyan MP. Every one of your MP’s thoughts results in a brainstorm.

It is therefore true to say that MP-hood is in fact not a job in itself but part of a metamorphosis to which only a select few are subject.

Secondly, the MP doesn’t care. This simply means that he is pursuing interests other than your own, and he doesn’t regard your protests and scepticism highly.

Remember how he and his peers decided to skyrocket their incomes, despite all your murmuring? Note that he only attends harambees when it suits his interests, not yours. He is not selfish, he is simply doing business.

When your actions appear to further his life in the House and add to his days of blissful snoozing, you become a very important piece of association to him. Otherwise, you are just a statistic; a mere variable.

Fooling everyone

Thirdly, those campaign pledges he made were not driven by patriotic zeal. He was simply fooling you into voting for him. The mere fact that he is presently a parliamentarian confirms that you fell for those lies.

And boy, he succeeded in fooling everyone — from the university professor to that youth who shakes soup in a kibuyu at the local butchery. This just goes to show how clever he is. As for the pledges, may God come to your aid.

On the rare occasion when this super-intelligent cousin of our species pays a visit to his constituents, he utters the kindest of words to all and wears a wide smile on his face. In fact, it looks almost as beautiful and as sincere as a shark’s smile, but with the same degree of warmth.

fertile imagination

When a Kenyan MP decides to smile, he gives a sterling performance that makes you completely forget his loud parliamentary snores, which can sometimes be easily heard from space.

The main tools of his trade are his mouth, a fertile imagination, a microphone and a wide collection of fibs. The mouth is particularly important. It is so important that were he to present it as collateral against a bank loan, banks would fight each other for it.

All in all, it might be necessary for us to pause for a second before we mete out our righteous judgement on the poor Kenyan MP. Actually, he’s not exactly poor - at least he lives on more than one dollar a day.