Beware, idol worship is our greatest undoing

Every new year starts the same way in Kenya. After a season of good cheer and family love, we are immediately thrown into the doldrums of financial pain, school fees demands and for the unlucky ones, the question of what to do after failing KCSE or KCPE. 

The pain of being Kenyan become so painfully clear when we consider that words like 'Njaanuary' are the norm, not the exception. The shylocks will make a killing and the pockets of many will become dead.

It is in this reality that the political class will descend on us with their tricks of avoiding the important and focusing on some mythical demon called 2022.

They will shuttle across the nation, not telling us how we will eat, dress and sleep, but instead; how they will share offices and eat our taxes with big spoons.

Thinking will be traded for fanaticism and their voices lent to the highest bidder. It is a circus, at its maxima.

The political class will feel no Njaanuary and their children do not feel the pleasure or the pain of passing or failing an exam.

For to the children of the mighty, international schools and colleges  are a plane ride away, no matter their performance for indeed, money answereth all things. Thus, the reality of January and Njaanuary are different, not just in spelling, but in the cold hard reality.

Bearing these facts in mind, I beg my fellow Njaanuarists to lust - to lust so hard after the wealth of the mighty and their mountains of things.

I beg them to desire to live in the lap of luxury and to imagine themselves in the fast and first lanes of life. I want them to desire the jetset life; to leave the public service vehicle (PSV) life behind and, instead, to debate whether to use first class on a one hour plane trip to Kisumu.

Dream, my people; dream big! Dream of 20 million Range Rovers, to be driven on well carpeted roads. Dream of living in a house with more bedrooms than you have family members. Dream big, dream it all and then want it all with hunger and zeal.

Elected wolves

Once you have so dreamt, ask yourself how you can get there. Then as you sit there with hunger in your stomach and an airy castle in your mind, realise that the only reason you don’t have those things is because you have allowed the guys who are full of food to determine your diet.

You have allowed those that prosper by your poverty to manage your finance and realise that you are a sheep who elected wolves to be shepherds.

As you realise this, also acknowledge that your fascination with 2022 and who will rise to power is like a herd of sheep wondering who to elect to be their butcher. Understand clearly that the more you focus on the next election, the more you are losing today; the more your hunger will be real.

The longer your Njaanuary will last, beyond the months and into the years, 2022 will arrive and you will still be poor complaining how you can’t make ends meet. All this while, the butcher you are so eager to elect will grow fat eating “life” with a big spoon from January to January without regard to you and yours, and then you will queue like a sheep to vote for your murderer.

Are you now angry enough? Then turn that anger into something useful. Turn your anger towards those that eat your food through corruption, turn your anger at those that instead of delivering your services steal from you and rob you. You aren’t broke because you took a holiday.

Big spoons

You are broke because of corruption, mediocrity and impunity. You don’t have because someone stole. The car he drives? He stole it from you. He is a thief and he has stolen your wealth, your prosperity and the future.

You may think that just because he comes from your tribe he is a better thief, but trust me, all the thieves meet in big hotels where life is eaten with big spoons and they laugh at your folly.

They laugh at your misery and they laugh even harder knowing your hungry self will vote for them again and again.

That your hungry self is busy crying in pain every time your man is attacked, yet your real tears should be for the hunger you suffer and for your children whose fees you currently can’t pay.

So, my dear Njaanuarists, desire the best, realise someone else steals food from your mouth every day and is begging to be you Governor, MP, Senator and President so that he can eat even that which is already in your stomach.

After you realise this, get angry and let this be the last Njaanuary you will ever face because you decided to eat the wolf; you decided not to let the butcher be the king of the lambs.

You finally realised that the sheep’s clothing (called our man and our tribe) upon which the wolf comes is the reason your eyes are blinded by the brightness of 2022. Arise, dream again, desire again and get angry. Get very angry at the band of thieves and route them out of our country and politics like the vermin they are!

Mr Bichachi is a communication consultant. [email protected]