Of BBI, BBW and big lies that suitors tell

Opposition chief Raila Odinga with BBI task force chair Yusuf Haji and his vice Adams Oloo. [File, Standard]

Some men like big, beautiful women, also referred to as ‘BBW’. You know, those curvy girls with tangible assets in all the best locations. The ones that your typical African man finds very hard to resist. You really can’t blame your typical African man, or any man really, for wanting as they say, ‘something to hold onto’. That’s their preference and their right as self-determining individuals in a democratic society.

Men should be able to pick and choose the kind of women they want to embrace romantically—women too, obviously. See, choice and consent should be at the heart of any relationship, but many times things go horribly wrong. Speaking of things that could go horribly wrong, the Building Bridges Initiative report, also referred to as the ‘BBI’ report will today be handed to President Uhuru Kenyatta.

By all indications, this bridge that Kenya’s political architects have engineered will lead to a referendum that will contort the 2010 Constitution into something more useful for the elites. Under the guise of inclusivity, which is part of the BBI’s nine-point agenda, we are likely to see a widening of the governance structure to ‘include’ as many leaders as necessary to give the impression of regional balance and ‘shared prosperity’.

They say that they engaged in massive public participation from the bottom up to give the people a voice. Ironically, the most probable conclusion of this alleged bottom-up approach could be a top-heavy network of eaters that will create even more avenues for theft and waste.

The folks pushing the BBI are dead set on a particular outcome and not much will get in their way, least of all the preferences of the Kenyan people. And yet, any process that is not rubber-stamped by the general population will very quickly run into problems of legitimacy. So we find ourselves in the familiar position where the State is down on one knee, asking us to amend our vows and enter into a new social contract.

On the face of things, it looks like we have a choice in the matter, that ultimately, by voting on a pre-determined set of questions, we will exercise something akin to consent. The reality is that we are being wooed into a box that has been designed to contain our desires and ambitions for a fairer distribution of national resources, while what we’re getting is a cynical and contrived distribution of positions. What we’re seeing is a big, bad and ill-informed attempt to manipulate the collective destiny of almost 50 million people, mostly for selfish gain.

Speaking of wooing, boxes and marriages, I’ve often heard men talking about ‘making honest women’ of their girlfriends by asking for their hands in marriage, but I hadn’t really given it much thought until recently. Turns out, like many things in societies where the balance tilts towards boys and men, it had something to do with women’s bodies.

In the olden days, women who ‘shacked up’ with men before they were married had to keep it a secret and pretend that they still had a hymen. To do that, they had to lie, first about being a virgin and secondly, about ‘living in sin’. So essentially, they were being dishonest. And if a woman really wanted to book a one-way flight to social hell, she would go ahead and have a child out of wedlock. Gasp! People would then say that she came by the child ‘dishonestly’. The right thing to do would have been to stand on her rooftop and announce to the world intimate details of her personal life. Because yeah, ‘honesty’ is much more important than female dignity.

Meanwhile, the men in these long-term, informal relationships walked around unchallenged about their choices. No one cared about their sex lives or the fruits thereof, and if they did care, it was more by way of congratulations than vilification. Heck, they would – and do – get away with having multiple informal relationships concurrently; or one informal relationship after the other, even. No one gave a hoot about their integrity. The onus was on women to prove themselves worthy by getting a man to marry them.

Which is where we find ourselves with this suitor of ours called Kenya. He’s lying when he says that including leaders from more communities will have a trickle-down effect. But we’re the ones with a real dishonesty problem. By remaining in this long-term relationship, and pretending we’re happy with the cyclical changes in our social contract, we’ve become the biggest liars in the room. The fact that we’re still in it, with almost no prospects of an equitable union, is further indictment.

Ms Masiga is Peace and Security Editor, The Conversation Africa