A letter to my governor

By TED MALANDA

I know it is unlikely that His Excellency Daktari David Nkedienye, the Nabongo of Kajiado County, reads this column.

But it is my prayer that a lazy idler in his office who reads this magazine like there is an exam the next day will bring this missive to his attention.

Daktari, your people are suffering. Those conceited people in Nairobi who wear sunglasses at night, hide tap water in mineral water bottles and think the red meat we eat in our county daily is unhealthy (the fools!) have taken to saying we, the people of Ongata Rongai, reside in ‘the diaspora’.

Traffic

What they mean is that travelling from ‘Nairobi’ — wherever that is — to Ongata Rongai is akin to travelling overseas. I used to think they were just misguided elements who are jealous of our development agenda, but I’m now starting to think they may have a point.

Your Excellency, traffic jams in our capital city of Ongata Rongai start as early as 5am because we have no bus park.

 Worse, a few potholes conspire to slow down traffic. You could sit in a jam for six hours fearing that there has been a horrific traffic accident ahead only to discover that it is a fat pothole keeping men from dashing to their locals to generate taxes for the county government.  

More annoying, however, are issues that are beyond your borders. As you are aware, Your Excellency, Kajiado North is not the richest constituency in Kenya because of our livestock. Our people work in Nairobi (the real diaspora) and remit millions back home daily.

Stalled

But our county economy stands to suffer because people are not getting to Nairobi, something that you must order your foreign affairs minister to address with speed.

We spend hours sitting in traffic because the road works at Bomas of Kenya have stalled.  Stalled because of two manyattas that are standing in the way.

If the people of Kenya can’t afford to compensate the owner of those two manyattas, let them tell us.

We are a rich county — we own two national parks, enough quarries, big herds of cattle and our daughters are married far and wide. We can pay.

Your Excellency, sir, you might also want to grab a walking stick and stroll over (don’t drive — you will never get there) to Lang’ata Road where those Wuuu Wiii people are building a bypass. Someone has erected two sets of road bumps to warn drivers of a diversion.

My only problem with those bumps is that they slow down traffic to the extent that we spend another 30 minutes catching tuberculosis in stuffy matatus.

Sober

Bwana governor, tell those people that we don’t drink beer in Nairobi because it is expensive for nothing. We drive past that place when sober so let them remove those annoying speed bumps and erect a road sign (we can read).

Finally Daktari, I have heard rumours that the son of Jomo is not averse to washing down a nicely roasted goat rib (which our county is famed) with a decent tot of whisky.

 Kindly use your good office to invite him for a swallow at my local and see how fast those potholes and bottlenecks will vanish.