Pork barrel politics will be the end of us

Entourage toward parliament building on June 13,2019 [File-Standard]

There is a clip doing the rounds showing an SUV with peculiar county government number plates speeding into a meeting followed by a similarly carelessly driven vehicle. Before the cars screech to a halt, some rotund fellows attempt to alight from the chase car as they normally see trained presidential guards do. They fail miserably.

One is almost run over as they scramble to open the door for His Excellency the Governor.

The ‘Close Protection Unit’ are over-eager to be noticed by the governor: after scanning the territory for any lurking danger, they open the door slowly and out comes an ill-looking fellow, a governor from North Rift.

He is dressed in faded jeans and a scraggy tee shirt, and walks like a man who owns the world, with a careless gait and faux confidence, knowing that he controls a budget of a couple of billion shillings. With such a budget, comes power.

Bar his sartorial inadequacies, the Big Man knows he wields real power as he steps out of the car to greet the waiting entourage who are all meek and oozing obeisance: they are well aware if the governor takes a liking to you, you will get a fat tender and your days of wallowing in poverty will be gone. They know which side of their toast is buttered.

This reminded me of the entourage of that false prophet who normally brings towns and cities to a standstill. The bearded fellow has armed police escorts and numerous high-end vehicles trailing him – that is when he’s not flying and advising his poor disciples to be careful on the roads because Kenyan roads are ‘very dangerous’.

The politicians pray for a new term so that they can continue preying on the electorate while the false prophet preys on those he’s purportedly praying for. What a messed-up country!

This kind of nonsense is what ails our society. When did we normalise mediocrity? Why do we allow ourselves to be led by such ne’er do wells? Yet, these governors and politicians, if they put their mind to it, would utilise their resources accordingly and make a positive change in the lives of the people they purport to serve. But, the reality is, they are only driven by short-term greed that pervades the entire fabric of society.

Even when they claim they are out to help, they do not have the interests of the people at heart. It is all about self-interest. Look at what we just witnessed in the by election at Ol Kalou. A lot has been written about this election, but I want to simply point out that it is a defining moment in this country’s politics.

Do you think for a moment that the government, in its magnanimity, has just realised that there was this dam at a place called gwa Kiongo, and that the dam could finally do with some fingerlings and miserable canoes?

Has it just occurred to some dim-witted politician that the people of Kalou can do with some mattresses to replace, I believe, the straw mattresses they have been sleeping on? That their roads need to be resurfaced, and a couple of transformers found their way from Central to blind the people of Ol Kalou.

And somehow, the gas cylinders that the President promised the nation in his first year in power were being rolled out overnight.

It shows an acute lack of respect for voters, that you think you can pour billions – like my good friend Moses Kuria admitted – and hope voters will be swayed by such disrespect for their ability to think and act independently of pork barrel politicking.

To the credit of Ol Kalou voters, they totally ignored the persuasion from tonnes of money and voted the way they did. They have shown that no matter how much money you have, voters can think and act independently.

-The writer is a communication consultant