Palaver - 06/10/09

Justice Aaron Ringera caved in to public pressure, conceded the reappointment letter was useless without the goodwill of Kenyans and Parliament. Then smiling machine Amos Shitswila Wako, who is our Attorney General, rebuffed Ringera’s claims the AG’s office was the biggest letdown on war against graft. But it turns out Wako’s case is that of new kettle laughing at the black-bottomed one sitting on the fire, for his name and Chief Justice Evan Gicheru’s top the list of those being pushed out if Kenya is to reform.

A tale is told of Kenya’s former Health ministers. One was functionally illiterate, thought Ascariasis the waterborne disease was military terminology, and could not pronounce, leave alone spell, the word schizophrenia. The other was better off with typewriters whose factories had closed down and the other, a former high school teacher, was so broke a year after he was voted out he was a regular user of Akamba buses. All this time a professor of medicine was always in the Cabinet, but in such fancy Ministries as Technical Training!

This can only be a Kenyan rumour. Is it true that Deputy Premier and head of our Treasury Mr Uhuru Kenyatta has shares in the car dealer whose 1800cc saloon he rode to Parliament on Budget Day to declare government would no longer buy those big guzzlers and those already in its pool are up for sale? Conspiracy theorists claim the shares are held in his family’s name. And wasn’t DT Dobie fighting back when it put up advertisements showing it too has a Mercedes brand of less than 1800cc? Methinks, the cars wars are on.

Now to finish the story of yesterday’s Afya House dude: At around 1pm, just woken up, he would call for his driver, send him to some butchery for roast meat. He would then doze off until 3pm when the meat arrives, wrapped in polythene paper and old newspapers. An hour later he would be on his way to his favourite corner in a Members Club — happy he played his part in building the nation.

And finally...

Why married women are thinner and singles heavier: "A single woman comes home, takes a look in the fridge and goes to bed! A married woman comes home, takes a look at what is in the bed and goes to the fridge!" Tragedy is the single is dying to be married and those already married think it is one hell of a prison!

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