Why Raila's forays in Western are akin to winking at a girl in darkness

The big crowds being witnessed in Opposition leader Raila Odinga’s Western tour should not fool him. As a presidential candidate, it’s not only reckless, but also dangerously naive to be at odds with leaders from a particular region, wish the problem away and still go ahead to make forays into their backyard, believing the locals love you so much that they will still vote for you.

I will explain. Kenyans are generally a bored and idle lot. When you travel across the breadth of the land, you notice distinguished citizens leaning on shop pillars and squatting by squalid trenches in an advanced state of mental and physical rigor mortis — vegetating and doing nothing. Their days are terribly long and empty. They scratch, sun themselves, yawn, belch and gossip but the hours still stretch before them.

Occasionally, they get a little excitement — a grenade going kaboom, a matatu crashing, a thief getting lynched or gangsters exchanging fire with cops, you know. But such moments are not as common as one might imagine and they are spread too thinly on the ground. One could spend months, even years, leaning on a shop pillar without seeing anything of significance.

Once in a while, an enterprising corporate concern brings a road show. The whole shindig is recycled — from the loud music, the shrieking stereo, the stale comedian, the dancers wriggling stuffed up bottoms, a windy celebrity shouting themselves horse and cheap T-shirts, cheap cap, cheap phone and, very occasionally, a handful of wrinkled bank notes on offer.

In fact, it is the sort of noise pollution the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) should ban. But to do so would be a crime against humanity, for what else would these bored souls do for entertainment, apart from getting ripped off by pata potea con artists and noisy street preachers?

This is where the politician and his or her rally comes in. Like moths at a light bulb, Kenyans congregate before a mad preacher, or politician, strictly for entertainment. In a sleepy hamlet where only the village tycoon owns a car — a rickety pick up that ferries produce and also doubles up as a hearse and an ambulance — a political rally is the biggest circus in town. Potbellied men villagers only hear about on radio arrive in person — in the biggest cars ever seen, and sometimes in choppers. It is a carnival: Loud music, acrobats, dances, bullfights.

Which idle villager would miss that? They arrive and crane their necks. Others perch on treetops. They wait for hours, patiently, because for the whole lot of them, that rally is the only new thing they will see for eight boring months, apart from a neighbour’s goat giving birth to a five-legged kid, or a man being caught with a neigbour’s wife in the banana grove, or secret lovers getting stuck in each other during the act. And even that is often just a rumour.

So opposition leader, Raila Odinga falls out with his party secretary general Ababu Namwamba and, out of panic, goes to his Western Kenya backyard for a charm offensive. He worsens the already bad situation by, for some strange reasons, leaving behind other party stalwarts from the region such as Kakamega senator Bonny Khalwale and Bungoma senator Moses Wetangula —whom we are also told he has fallen out of favour with. A scandal.

He safely arrives and sees this humongous mass of excited, cheering locals and goes gaga. They line up along roads. They come by boda boda, on foot — to see the great Baba with their own eyes, maybe even shake his hand. Tinga, the old master works up the crowd. He tickles and amuses them — “Kitendawili! Kitendewali!” Then in a grand finale, he asks, “Wangapi wanakubiliana na sisi?” A sea of hands shoots up.

He elbows Kisumu senator Anyang’ Nyong’o or James Orengo in the ribs and, with a sly grin, whispers: “See how these guys love me!” Weeks later when opinion polls in which he is doing badly comes out, Baba rubbishes them because of the massive crowd of ‘supporters’ who follow him everywhere, forgetting that mass of humanity is merely hungry for entertainment and a freebie.

When it’s election time, he gets two votes from the region! And, of course, your guess is as good as mine as to what he will say IEBC did to his votes.