"Siku ya Nyani Kufa miti yote huteleza" - How Kenyan political parties have justified this statement

The Swahili saying Siku ya nyani kufa miti zote huteleza, loosely translated to mean on the day of the monkey’s death, every tree it jumps onto is slippery, is one that is commonly used it times of war.

It implies that when the time for one’s downfall has come, there is very little the victim, usually a combatant, can do to salvage themselves. But monkeys are not very popular animals in the Swahili culture hence the saying is mostly used in reference to evil individuals or schemers and proponents of doom. When the Swahili use that saying in reference to you, you have a reason to be very afraid. They are simply saying that they do not like you and your days are numbered, literally and figuratively.

The saying, however, is not just used without evidence. There must be a series of events and happenings that keep befalling one with a degree of consistency to warrant the description and monkey analogy.

In this period of elections where there can be only one winner in every given contest, there are bound to be very many monkeys. From the county representative, the parliamentary, the woman representative, the Senate, gubernatorial onto the presidential race, observers can always tell the monkey by the mishaps in their campaigns.

In my county of Busia, one gubernatorial candidate has recently experienced too many monkey moments to ignore. Word on the street is that it is high time the candidate opted out of the race to save themselves from further embarrassment.

First, the man was embarrassed in his political party primaries when he was walloped by the incumbent. He left the party and decided to run as an independent candidate crying foul that he had been rigged out.

But no sooner had he left the party than he started complaining that the leadership of the party he had ditched was leaning towards his competitor and hence tilting the battlefield against his own candidacy. How the former Cabinet minister expected a party leader not to support his own party’s candidates, defeats logic. But things got even murkier for our good independent candidate. Soon his own family called a meeting, hosting and endorsing his competitor, the same man who beat him in the primaries.

The man started throwing tantrums and a few of his allies, typical of losers, begun blaming the media for highlighting and reporting the endorsement. Some even attempted to deny that the family spokesman quoted during the ceremony was not family enough. Then the man’s billboards in the county started going down and all fingers were directed at his competitor. It later emerged that the candidate had been conned by “the supporters” who he had given money and assigned the task of paying for the billboards.

The money was misappropriated and the outdoor firm in charge of the billboards had not been paid the due fees. A dinner the candidate organised to raise funds for his campaign was not as successful and soon a senatorial candidate with whom he had been working, distanced himself from him to fight his own wars. Talk of misfortunes not coming in singles!