Why Kenyans will be region's refugees, beggars in times ahead

I am filing this piece from Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. It is the day President Uhuru Kenyatta launched the Madaraka train, back home. My driver in Dar went on and on about my country’s forthcoming elections. And he is not alone. People around here are concerned about my country. There is fear that Kenyans are about to steal elections – or imagine that elections have been stolen – and fight and fight over them. At the University of Dar-es-Salaam, someone told me lightheartedly, but with meaning all the same, “Here in Tanzania, we know that Kenyans are thieves. They steal everything and anything – from land to public toilets and elections.”

It is quite some reputation we have. I am reminded that the Majority Leader in the National Assembly has said the Opposition has set up “a rigging station” in Tanzania. Conversely, the Opposition has itself been running with the rigging script for four years. And they have pledged “not to go to court if the election is stolen again.” While we think we are sitting pretty, bandying about strange electoral statistics, the world is concerned about our boiling pot. And so I have to take caustic lectures from foreign cab drivers, on behalf of my country. Somewhere along the line, I put in my limited expertise in Kiswahili proverbs, “Adhabu ya kaburi aijuwaye maiti,” I said. Which means only the dead appreciate the sufferings in the grave.