Why I do not sympathize with “Wanjiku”

Last time I wrote in condemnation of the greed our beloved MPs are arrogantly exhibiting by asking for higher salaries. And I said that I do not sympathize with the Kenyan voter. My reasons are as follows:

For starters, it is you the voter who is helping to propagate the ‘hyena regimes.’ I can already see that curious and furious face with the question ‘how’ screaming out loud. This is how you are doing it.

Elections time in Kenya have proved to be a battle time. Not real battles for land or freedom, but battles for power. Each aspirant will be trying to outdo the other, not in terms of wits and ideology, but in terms of ‘financial muscle’. This leads them to getting down and dirty so as to outshine the rest; the result of which is more votes. 

It is like a peacock mating game, where the most beautiful cock gets a female with which to mate. Surely, Kenyans, have you reduced your status to that of ‘mere birds’? Let us dissect the political behavior of the Kenyan voter and unravel the underlying factors to such kind of animal behavior.

In his advice to the prince of Medici, Nicollo Machiavelli states that in politics, there are no safe courses; prudence consists in choosing the least dangerous ones. When you the Kenyan voter or ’Wanjiku’ (as the retired president Moi would call you) allow yourself to be blinded using a mere 100 or 200 bob so as to sell your vote, are you being prudent? At times, it goes even as low as 50 bob…merchandising your future at such a cheap price? You are seriously ‘wise’!! For such an act, you deserve a hole in your head!!

Politics is a realistic game, not a game in abstraction. Depending on how you play it, it is either a ‘zero- sum game’ or not. When you go around playing your political cards openly and blindly, it automatically becomes a zero-sum game for you. You will help the wrong aspirant to win and the flipside is that you are the automatic loser. Sensing defeat, you give in to the ‘winner’ and become their puppet. 

By so doing, that ‘mshindi’ creates dependency in you-you look up to him for help any time you are faced with a problem. Dependency is the worst cancer in the game of politics. At this level, a victim exhibits symptoms which even the most experienced doctors have never been able to diagnose, let alone treat.

Firstly, Wanjiku develops a dangerously insatiable thirst for money. Further, she develops another complexity namely the ‘mtu wetu’ syndrome. This syndrome is identified by her fanatic actions In support of the particular Wanjiku’s tribesman. That is when the charm gets poisoned.

The frenzy that follows is like a bushfire. Trying to put it out will be fruitless. Wanjiku is now in a political stupor, at the expense of her future... and that is how she chains herself up. 

Lately, this ‘siasa ya mtu wetu’ has gone a notch higher. Individuals’ hunger for power has been elevated to the tribe level. 

This is the new strain of the virus ‘Wanjiku politics’. Tribes are now entering into alliances so as to quench their hungers for power. 

In the cocoon of their tribes, the now badly and heavily intoxicated Wanjikus from various tribes cannot make any sober decision. Their power of reasoning takes a back seat and is obscured by the politics of power. The ‘mshindi’ now has total power over these hapless and hopeless creatures. When he asks them to jump, instead of asking why, they ask ‘how high’.

This is what has been happening within the last few weeks in the ‘April’ house. (They assumed office in April, didn’t they?) Those so called ‘mtu wetu’ are now asking you the voter to jump. Since you voted them blindly, your noises in objection will only be what my grandmother would call, ’foxes eating sugarcane’-harmless and ineffective so to say. 

It’s now payback time. These ‘hyenas’ are simply ‘pundas’. Their gratitude for having voted them in parliament is ‘matekes’. Now, my dear Wanjikus, take that bullet, swallow the bitter pill of your irresponsibility and blame it on your foolish gullibility.

Being that politics is a perception, your perception that you were bound to benefit by voting in ‘mtu wenu’ is a mere illusion. In the words of one Mutahi Ngunyi,’ the perception that tribe is a beneficiary of politics is a big fat lie’. You should have heeded to this if you were wise enough.

My fellow good people, all I am trying to put forth to you is that we need a change. This seemingly inherent greed in the Kenyan DNA is going to ‘maliza’ us, not only ‘kisiasa’ but in all other aspects of life. A culture of greed is a culture of poverty. We need to overhaul ourselves and come out free of greed. 

But according to the ‘‘Law of Nature’’, something must die for the new to emerge. And nothing illustrates this better than the metamorphosis of a butterfly. After the egg hatches, it begins life in the ‘‘pupa’’ stage before entering the ‘‘larva’’ stage as a caterpillar. 

Then the caterpillar weaves a silky cocoon around its body, suspends itself on a leafy branch and takes a long deep, deep sleep. Warmed by the sun, and protected from the rain, it waits. Then, one day movement occurs and a butterfly emerges. After drying its new wings in the morning breeze, it takes off into the air. 

In each of the stages, something dies. But no loss is experienced because something new, even better, emerges. And this is what nature is calling us to do for Mother Kenya. 

The ‘honorable’ (not sure that is the correct title to use for them) MPs are part of this DNA. As part of us, they are plagued by the same malady of greed. They too need a thorough cleansing. If no one is willing to kill this greed, then let no one utter a word in objection when Linturi, Duale and Co. propagate the same old culture of oppression and repression! Elections will continue to serve as a wheel to recycle the same old and bad habits and leaders. That is why I do not sympathize with you, Wanjiku, the Kenyan voter.

Just bear in mind this Aristotelian piece of advice, “Society produces what it has.”