Folly of salivating for presidential jobs

By TED MALANDA

KENYA: When South Sudan erupted and the president ordered KDF to evacuate Kenyans stranded in Juba, someone suggested on Facebook that the president was acting so because ‘his people’ were the ones in Juba.

By ‘his people’, this chap was not referring to Kenyans. He meant the president’s tribesmen. Now, being something of an idler, I kept glued to TV and took time to study each of the evacuees as they disembarked from planes at the Wilson Airport. (The commander-in-chief should order those KDF fellows who fly planes to dress properly, though. Those overalls of theirs are so Grogan Road. Kwani we can’t afford to buy them Italian suits?)

Anyway, one good thing about Kenya is that if you study someone’s skin colour, the morphology of their foreheads and noses, you can make a fairly accurate estimate about which region they come from. And if they open their mouths and speak in English or Kiswahili, you can accurately guess which sub-county they hail from.

What I gathered from my crude study is that people bailing out of South Sudan are not the president’s tribesmen but the president’s people — Kenyans.  All manner of Kenyan tribes are scratching South Sudan soil for mbeca, money. From Kenyan Indians to Karen cowboys, from Tesos, Tharakas to the odd Ndorobo, we are in South Sudan doing what we know best — making money by crook.

That wooly Facebook post is not an isolated event. Fact is Kenya is divided into two nations. The Luo state and the Kikuyu state with three other big tribes oscillating their support depending on what their fat tribal warlord orders. (The Turkana, Pokot, Rendile and other forgotten tribes wouldn’t care less.)

Of course there is no love lost between these two nation states that constitute Kenya. Thus, you have all manner of drivel hurled at Raila Odinga from the Kikuyu nation for the most inane of things. But on the other hand, there is nothing that President Uhuru would do that would meet the favour of the Luo Nation.

It has become so childish that public reaction to whatever these two leaders do or say is knee-jerk, lopsided and totally devoid of common sense, even from highly educated people who should know better. It’s actually so silly that far too many broke people waste their lives on social media insulting Raila, Uhuru and each other — like the two leaders, who are billionaires, give a hoot.

To understand how idiotic it all is, look back to the KCPE results that were released last week. The best student from Kakamega County this year is a little girl named Odhiambo Wanjiku Sheila — clearly the product of a romantic coalition between ODM and TNA.

She was not appointed to that position. Her father, who is Luo, did not lobby Raila for her ‘appointment’. Her mother, who is Kikuyu, did not lobby Uhuru to have her daughter ‘rewarded’ with ninth position nationally. Young Sheila, who probably doesn’t care who won or lost the 2013 poll, worked for it.

So there you have it. Hard working Kenyans risk their lives making a buck in South Sudan while losers sit around scratching their armpits and whining, “Oh, the President is not giving our people jobs.” Bure kabisa.