What counts in corruption is which side you are, depending on the paymaster

President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto with Governors Hassan Joho and Salim Mvurya during the opening of Miritini-Mwache-Kipevu Link Road, Mombasa County. [Standard]

Kenya is in the grip of a dysfunctional government and a dud Parliament. The unsinkable Jubilee Titanic is crumbling. Its planks are shaking frightfully; ready to collapse into shark-infested waters. There are dreadful accusations and counter-accusations about corruption between the two major formations in the cabin crew. The secret is out – the entire formation was all along about eating up the country. It was about accumulation of personal treasures. Two sets of mutually suspicious sea pirates came together because this was the convenient thing to do in their mutually selfish search.

If you have read Robert Louis Stephenson’s 1881 classic titled Treasure Island, you will recognise some of the characters. First, there is Billy Bones. He holds the roadmap to the treasure. He arrives with a chest full of secrets – including the map to Treasure Island. And Kenya possibly has her own Billy Bones, complete with skeletons in the closet. The drama of greed in Stephenson’s story begins when a blind man called Black Dog slaps a black spot in Billy Bones’ palm. In these greedy gangsters’ universe, this is the pirates’ way of telling one of their own that his days are numbered. They are telling him, “We are coming for you. We are going to kill you.” Have the black dogs of Kenya slapped the country’s Billy Bones’ with the political black spot?