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In our boyhood, once upon a time, when backbreaking work was considered noble, and we were happy to receive nothing more than morsels of food, the sight of a toad springing out of the soil was a rare source of unalloyed joy.
It meant taking a deserved break from the tedium of rhythmically striding earth usinga hoe, swirling dust that covered your head, yet still maintaining pace to catch up with the older boys.
So the sight of a poor toad making its short leaps elicited a garland of a dozen feet, all inching to give it a thrashing using their bare feet, some as scaly as the toad’s. A volley of kicks left the boys enthralled.
Their energies spent, the lads would converge around the poor creature to observe the milky film that formed around its face, a suspected poisonous gauze that the toad used to insulate itself against predators.
If lucky, the toad would be tossed using a stick to another part of the farm, its short flight eliciting even more merriment. In other instances, it’d be clobbered using the hoes and buried under the soil, and the young farmers returned to their toils, after an eventful if brief comic relief.
It’s that season of the year when politicians, by their dozens, are returning to their areas of representation with both fear and trepidation. After being burrowed in politics, their hour of reckoning is at hand.
Like the toads that crop up to distract those engrossed in toil, the political class is up for a good thrashing. Judging from the last couple of election cycles, there is no doubt that 90 percent of the MPs, MCAs, governors, and what-have-you will be kicked out.
My submission then, as now, is that the Kenyan voter is a strange creature. Since our politicians are liars and thieves, how come we always end up with a certain type of personality, regardless of locality? And how is it that we tend to be swayed to a particular direction every election cycle, yet rue our choice almost instantly, and can’t wait to be rid of those very people we put in office?
Well, there are many possible explanations, the most compelling being that politicians use witchcraft. Yes, they do, and some have been convicted of the vice. This means a terrified citizenry votes for them because they are afraid of their psychic powers.
Yet, the politicos are even more fearful of the electorate. As we saw this past week, and we shall see in the weeks and months ahead, political rallies will be organised, disguised as project launches by the usual suspects.
And because the political wind has changed direction, the cunning and calculating individuals are weighing where they stand for better prospects of re-election. They are avoiding public appearances that would imply an overt political standpoint.
Like the toads in the ground, they prefer to burrow their heads in the soil and only emerge when it’s considerably safe to show where they truly stand. Put simply, they think with their stomachs, so the priority is not making a political stand, but where their continued access to the feeding trough is more secure.
In the Big Mountain, I have heard confounding things, such as crowds being hired to prop up the dwindled and dwindling numbers of attendees in those rallies. And local politicians are avoiding such rallies because they are said to be awaiting direction from the electorate, who are their “true” bosses. This means they are waiting to decamp for a political vehicle that will gain better traction with the masses.
The more prudent thing, I think, is that they should brace themselves for a good thrashing because the ploughing season is upon us, and the energised electorate, worn from their back-breaking toils, just can’t wait to kick something or somebody, really hard.
