Uhuru Kenyatta's unhappy ending and what the majority will remember

President Uhuru Kenyatta stands still as the final national anthem in the military barracks is played during the KDF farewell event. [Kelly Ayodi, Standard] President Uhuru Kenyatta retires unhappy and sulky. It pains him that William Ruto, whom he scorned and humiliated in public, is taking over. The hand he would not shake must receive, from his, the instruments of State. Such is our law. Even if the president will not utter the words, 'Congratulations, Dr Ruto,' this man is set to be Kenya's fifth president. It does not matter that the retiring sovereign says his leader is the defeated Mr Raila Odinga. Dr Ruto is the new leader of Kenya. Mr Odinga is the leader of the Opposition. Painful, but true. The law, the people, and God have said. There is a universal law Kenya's retiring president has not learnt. In the unending intersections of life, nothing lasts forever. Good or bad, everything must rest and even end. That is why Lord Byron's famous poem, 'So we'll go no more a roving,' remains evergreen. If I have previously cited Byron, or George Gordon as they also called him, forgive me. I must return to him. For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul wears out the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And love itself have rest. So the time has come. My fourth president must himself go. To quote another poet, Samuel T Coleridge, those unhappy about Kenya's presidential poll must wake up on Tuesday, older and sadder, but wiser. Meanwhile, departures, especially from high places, remind us of the vanity of chasing after the wind. They speak to the brevity of good things, and the good life. Like another great poet taught us, life is but a walking shadow. He said, this poet, that this shadow is full of sound and fury. Yet it signifies nothing. We are chastised, even chastened, if we shall not be kind, and good, to those around us. For, we only journey through a nothingness called life. The same poet, Shakespeare, said: All the world's a stage, And all the men and women are merely players; They have their exits and entrances. The poet talks of seven ages on the stage. All who will be privileged to live to the Pauline biblical maturity of seventy and above must go through the seven stages. Yet many of us are stuck at the second stage, 'whining with the satchel, unwilling to go to school.' It is not just the grammar school. It is mainly the school of life; the universal academy that teaches us to treat people well. When he arrived in the great house on the hill, I promised my fourth president that my pen would tarry with him all through his tenure. It would be a fair pen, although a little sharp on the edges. It would shew him for what he was when he derailed, and praise him when he deserved. It would be him to guide the pen. I have kept my word, even as President Uhuru retires on Tuesday. I should have loved to pen a laudatory valedictory to this man who has occupied a great space for ten years. It is the kind of space in which great achievements and great mistakes are made. Yet, how sad, that history remembers most the awkward small things that people did! Marie Antoinette, her womanish whims and cakes; Louis XVI, his locks and toys while France tottered on the brinks; Nero and his lute, while Rome burned; Imelda and Ferdinand, with their thousands of pairs of shoes, while The Philippines sank. There will be time, long and good enough, to document President Uhuru's great roads and railways. But they will be forgotten. People will remember most how he treated Dr Ruto at the Bomas of Kenya, outside Parliament and at Uhuru Stadium. They will remember his public flare ups against him. This memory will swallow that of the highways and railways. For, human relations are everything in history. So, we'll go no more a roving So late into the night, Though the heart be still as loving, And the moon be still as bright. Yes, we'll go no more roving with President Uhuru Kenyatta. For the sword outwears its sheath. Adios, amigos. -Dr Muluka is a strategic communications advisor. www.barrackmuluka.co.ke

Uhuru Kenyatta's unhappy ending and what the majority will remember

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