Go slow, Kenyans tell Matiang'i, remind memory is still fresh of his stint in power

Former Interior CS Fred Matiang'i addressing the press during the unveiling of the new registration plates in GSU Recce Squad Unit headquarters on 30th August 2022. [File, Standard]

Former Interior Cabinet Minister Fred Matiang’i, who reportedly left his World Bank job in Washington to throw his hat in the political ring was quick to condemn the police for the murder of schoolteacher Albert Ojwang.

Matiang’i, a student of literature who was particularly fond of the word “paradigm,” was caught by surprise when Kenyans responded by asking: Wait a minute, who’s talking now… Then they reminded him of his reign in power when River Yala was turned into a river of blood, with bodies of lifeless Kenyans floating in water—victims of senseless murder orchestrated by the State.

It’s a sign of things to come. As human rights agenda takes front and centre of our national discourse, this could be Matiang’i’s Achilles’s heel. I think he’d have done well to consult with Mukhisa Kituyi, who similarly left a lofty position in the UN to try his luck at the presidency. He didn’t even make it to the ballot.

The River Yala tragedy calls to mind the American songstress Billie Holiday’s haunting song, Strange Fruit, which documents the horrific lynching of black men in America’s South during the Jim Crow era:

Southern trees bear a strange fruit

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root

Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees

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We stand corrected. Embu Governor’s childhood nickname is “Karinda,” not “Kadida,” as I wrote last week. Blame it on her Kiembu sing-song. Karinda is a subversion of the politics of gender in power structures, which makes her June 1 speech even more evocative. Come baby, come.