50 years and counting, the Kenyan politician is shockingly cunning

THE FLY WHISK:

Fling it sharply, and growl: Rebels hide their heads

Wave it gently and smile: Flies flit from puss dropping eyes

Sling it on the arm, finally: Empty stomachs will drum for you. -JOHN RUNGANDA-

If your stomach did not churn watching and listening to the Owino Uhuru story, then you must be a very brave Kenyan. What a heart-wrenching story it was about Plague for Profit and Futari ya Sumu by Mohammed Ali and John Allan Namu respectively of the deadly poison the children and dwellers of Owino Uhuru estate have been exposed to. But when you thought the poor who are the victims in this case would stand up against bad leadership, not only did they elect him, they (victims) even turned around and accused Mohamed Ali of playing politics. They claimed that those children Mohamed Ali showed on TV were aliens from outer galaxies. Very sad.

When you thought the expose would remove the cobwebs from their eyes, it only ended up making them sink low into the politician's magical spell.

Didn’t we see the common man whose tax money was stolen by the politicians gladly escort the same politicians to EACC to defend themselves, from where some of them even claimed it was witch hunt on their ‘beloved leader.’

Doesn’t it strike you that election upon elections, in spite of all the bravado of a politically mature electorate, the fact is, it is just a false illusion that has stuck with us for 50 years. Aren’t the poor peasants, fish mongers of Dunga beach, the paddy farmers of Mwea, Ahero or West Kano and slums dwellers like of those of  Owino Uhuru in Mombasa that make the highest number of the electorate?

Forget the middle class and the rich; theirs is to do what Musonye said; use most of their time in bars drinking beer and doing what they do best-political gossip. It is amazing that fifty years down the line, Kenya is still overwhelmed by the three challenges they faced at independence- Diseases, Ignorance and poverty. Then we added into the list what the poor call bonuses:  a debilitating tribal jingoism, corruption and insecurity; thus Kenya is rather sick at 50 and very insecure with runaway insecurity. Most recently the Garissa attack in which Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohammed told international media, that the response was adequate.

From muggers, terrorism, to police colluding with criminals while arresting the innocent, one is left wondering.  When a bank is broken into and all the robbers are police, we wonder who will trace the thieves. It is at this point then that the poor are left hoping against hope that each ending day, he will still be alive by the grace of God and not by the protection of the state to which he pays taxes!

Our education system is more of what the poor term as  free failures, for most of the children that graduate from class 8 since the advent of free primary education can hardly spell their names leave alone reading them out when written on a piece of paper. (The various KNEC reports vindicate me)!

We have remained so ignorant in spite of the expanded education sector and the new constitution. We have remained so ignorant to the fact that we are just the supporting cast that easily fits into the wider political play for the political elite, be it Uhuru, Raila, Ruto, Kalonzo, Wetangula or the village councillor that we have now given some fancy titles as 'County Rep'.

When President Uhuru selected children and relatives of his father’s friends and put them in various parastatals, majority of Kenyans saw nothing wrong. The fly whisk in the above poem is symbolic of the instruments of power that the politician has continued to use to exploit our average education level and by extension our reasoning capacity for his own gain. And boy, doesn't the politician love it!

It is a fact that 70% of the Kenyan voters have either: never seen the inside of a classroom for one reason or the other, are class 8 dropouts, form four drop outs or some backstreet college charlatans: some of whom were recently shown as products of Nairobi aviation where anything goes.

You don’t expect something good from such a mind other than accepting Sh50 from a politician to kill his long time neighbor! The very youth who is jobless, who should ask for more funds for Devolution to work, will gladly pocket Sh50 from a politician then proceed to burn the referendum booklets.

Fifty years down the line the politician is still using power to flex his muscle, to announce to the poor, who the sheriff in town is, never mind this is the same poor fish monger in the shores of Lake Turkana who voted him in. The politician rides into dusty sleepy village of Tamu or Timau, aboard a state of the art machine surrounded by mean looking body guards, then he rises to wave at us and we go gaga.

Like the herring  mesmerized by the fisherman's lantern, we get  false  hope  of good things to come  oblivious of the fact that being the politician he is, he is just using what is called mass psychology. 'Give them false hope and they will sing your name till dawn'. Just like some con pastors have learnt to use religion as an opium of the poor, the politician has used for 50 years, political deceit and manipulation of the poor Kenyan voter. You have seen them throwing shoes at the President, you have seen them disrupting pro-referendum rallies, yet on the same breath, still have the guts to shout that they are enlightened, that they are the digital generation, that they are the future stakeholders of this country. Now that is the 21st Century Kenyan voter for you!

To the average Kikuyu from Koimbi village, or the slopes of Kapasowar, Raila Odinga is the enemy number one, the devil reincarnate power hungry! Likewise some dimwit from Karungu or Kanyajuach thinks Uhuru Kenyatta is such a mortal enemy of the Luos and good for nothing fellow. And there are several average minds out there steeped in divisive politics on social media. .

There is nothing wrong with objective criticism of Uhuru, Ruto or Raila but it becomes so poisonous to rally your tribe against another tribe behind the comfort or hideout of social media simply because your tribal demigod is in power or the one you think ought to be there.

What magic wand does the politician hold that we can kill our neighbor and still laugh it off and even threaten the world if so and so is prosecuted?

Come to think of it: Uhuru Kenyatta tells some gullible supporters that ‘gazeti ni ya kufunga nyama’ (Newspapers are for wrapping meat) and the fools clap for him yet the following morning they rush to the nearest newspaper vendor in Nkubu to get THE PEOPLE NEWS PAPER  owned by Uhuru to read what Uhuru told them the  previous day!

How foolish can a Luo from Gem Oremo be to not see Raila and Uhuru hugging contrary to political rhetoric on television? We are been fooled without realising it.

Unless we sober up, sit back and reflect on what route we would want to take in the next 50 years, the poor will suffer a painful humanity and perish while the politician flies out of Kenya into safety where they keep shipping money stolen from us. The latest revelations from Lamu, Karen, Langata Primary school  to Turkana,  Plague for Profit, the season of Eating 'matunda ya Uhuru' is here for the Political animal while we the poor cheer them on.