Crucify him: And Johnson Sakaja was boiling 'degrees centigrade'

There is trouble here in paradise, our little heaven down here in Emanyulia. Orende, the big cigarette man, is saying that people have been pretending to be what they are not. They have forgotten what the Mzee used to say, that is Mzee Moi, also known as Mzee Nyayo. 
“Never pretend to be what you are not,” was his regular clarion call. “Watu waache kujipendekeza, pretending ati wamesoma saana, and yet they know that they have never seen the inside of a school. Wacha the inside of a classroom, they have never been in a school, hata kupita tu. 
Hay ey! Watu kumbe are afraid of books. “Na people  don’t know book,”  as they say in a village called Umwofia, in Nigeria. Then, they say, they are Dr So-and-So, and Prof This-and That.” But they know ukweli that “they don’t know book.” 
Umuofia was the village where a man called Obi Okonkwo, son of Isaac Okonkwo of Things Fall Apart and No Longer At Ease, by Mzee Chinua Achebe, were saying. “Mr. Obi ate book in England, B. A. English and Classics (London).” But he was just speaking English of “is” and “was.”  He was not blasting big fat London English, like “blockbuster,” or “shololokobangoshay.”
The people of Umuofia were not happy with this small English of Mr Okonkwo.They wanted good English that fills up the mouth, like dry meat.  But here in Emanyulia we were just happy because we had our Mr Sakaja. We were happy listening to our man. This is to say, our man in Nairobi. First, we made him a big man in the city, calling him Mr Senator, Sakaja, B. A., M.A, (Teams, All and Sundry University).  
Mr Senator Sakaja, B.A., M.A., was making big talk on big TV in Nairobi, with Mr Jeff Koinange, and other big blasters of big English, like Prof  PLO Lumumba of Kathoma, Usenge, and Mheshimiwa Mutula Kilonzo Jnr, a dynamic man. They were saying things like “duo dynamics, per capita, GDP, democratic, prebendalism, and kakistocracy.”
We did not understand what they were saying. But we were just feeling good, listening to big fat English from the mouth. Then our man wanted to be made a bigger man, that is to say a governor. And he wanted to be a governor of a big place, hapana small places like Lamu, or huko Tharaka-Nithi, kwa akina Njuki Githiome. He wanted to be a proper makulubaas in Nairobi. But now some people began saying, “Oh, eh, Sakaja! Oh, eh! He has no degree, oh, eh!”
And now we are in shock. How can our man who blasts big grammar on TV be minus degree? Orende has been telling us that we should go to court. “Even minus degree is degree,” he has been saying. You see, Orende says strange things, difficult things, especially when he has been eating that green Wajackoya manifesto, called njaga, from Emuhaya.  He has been saying strange things called “thermometers, temperatures and number lines.” 
He says that zero, or naught, is at the centre of everything, including degrees. “If you go to the right of zero, you get plus degree. If you go to the left on the thing called number line, you get minus degree. Sasa, if Mr Sakaja, B.A., M.A., has no degree, then he is minus degrees centigrade, or Fahrenheit.” 
Headache! Now that is true headache. Anyway, Orende says that kwa kweli, Mr Sakaja has three degrees. Minus degree ya Nairobi, minus degree ya KU, and minus degree from the land of Yoweri Kaguta, also known as Bujagali, Uganda. “Mr Sakaja, B. A., M. A., is minus 3 degrees, because people have taken away his three degrees. He is not like Mr Sonko who has one big degree - with graduation photos too boot.” 
You see, Mr. Sonko had become a big man in Nairobi. A big, big man. He was dressing like a policeman, riding on a motor bike, punching walls and sleeping on the road. He was crying like a small baby and wearing many nyororos. He was crying because people had no food to eat and no house. But he was also crying because the police took away his guns. Then he started crying because the crocodile farmer called Muigai Kenyatta said, “ Sonko him no good for big man of Nairobi oh.” 
Then the crocodile farmer brought a tough army man, called Badi to be the big man, instead. Our big manSonko was annoyed. Angry, proper, proper! Now he was recording things on the phone and putting the crocodile farmer of River Jordan on speaker phone, kuonyeshana ati he knows people. Anajua watu. But he was also recording the crocodile farmer and playing back secret stuff with his friends. They were just happy, laughing at the crocodile farmer, smoking their food from Emuhaya, and feeling good. 
Mr. Sonko started whispering bad things about big cigarettes, red eyes and big people in big houses on big mountains. When people didn’t notice he was whispering, he started shouting, saying they were “drinking bad things with big people.” So, this Mr. Sonko was chased away from Nairobi, where he was a big man. He ran to Mombasa, where people with one big degree are appreciated. 
Mr. Sonko was told that if he goes to Mombasa, the people know how to make him a big makulubaas.
“A sharp tongue that can say diambo and tialalah things is what you need,” someone told him, “ A sharp tongue that knows how to say, ‘Usiniletee ! Usiniletee! Ukilete diambo, utapata diambo!’”
So, Mr Sonko went to Mombasa. He looked for a watermelon, or a buffalo man, to escort him to become a big man in Mombasa. He was a buffalo soldier, born in Tseikuru, and stolen from Africa. He was fighting for Mr Sonko’s survival, because Mombasa people walikuwa wamechanuka. They were saying, “Wajinga waliisha Mombasa hii.”
There were no more foolish people left in Mombasani, they said. Ati they don’t want big degrees who are  “rejects” from bara, even if Mombasa inakaa zero degrees at sea level. So, the buffalo pumpkin man told Sonko he would take him to Mombasani and see who could say to them, “Ng’weeh . . . !” That is to say, who could dare say No, to Mr Sonko and him. 
So the buffalo melon and Mr Sonko have been talking big English in the courts, saying that the buffalo will not allow people kuonea mtoto wake, Sonko, ati just because he has a Sonko rescue team. You see, the buffalo melon is the rescue team that has come to rescue Sonko. But Mr Sakaja, B.A., M.A, has no rescue team. He only has a minus degree from Teams University. Mr Sakaja is a poor orphan boy. He has no melon man to rescue him. He is just the Either-Neither Man that Mr Joe De Graft was talking about. 
You remember Mr Joe De Graft? He was from Ghana, near Achimota College. He wrote a play called Muntu. Now, in this play, the Either-Neither man was accepting everything and refusing it also. Like Mr Sakaja, B.A., M.A., he did not know whether his degrees were plus, or minus. He did not know whether he had been out of the country to look for a degree, or whether he had got his degree in Nairobi – sorry, in Accra. He was just saying (feminine voice kidogo), “Eh, nilijoin campo, na nilikuwa 18 tu, na sijatoka Kenya, in terms of education. Eeeeh, nilikuwa audit clerk tu, halafu tena driver ….”
Eh, then the tongue just twists in the mouth and says, “Eeeeh, nilikuwa Uganda, Teams . . .” Then the head just remembers he was not there, it goes, “Eeeeh, nilikuwa tu online. . .” Then someone tells him there was no online siku hizo. So he says, “Eeeeh, waliandika my name badly. They misspelt it…. In fact, they forgot. Walinionea, because they knew one day I will want to be the main kaguy in Kanairo. Hii Nairwenzi yetu. Eeeh, hii Naihati!”
So now we don’t know what is going to happen. Things fall apart. We are no longer at ease. 

— Dr Barrack Muluka, PhD, is s strategic communications advisor.
www.barrackmuluka.co.ke