Dear King Kaka, showbiz and revolutions don't mix very well

Uganda’s Bobi Wine, alias Robert Kyagulanyi, successfully leveraged a music career into a serious political one.

He is now an MP famously aspiring to become President. King Kaka, aka @RabbitTheKing, aka Kennedy Ombima, may not necessarily be aiming for the same thing, but he has made waves online while knocking a political head or two.

His hit song "Wajinga Nyinyi", which lampoons our corrupt political culture, had by last week scored over a million hits on YouTube. On Twitter, #WajingaNyinyi was trending to the moon.

Clever marketing or spontaneous mass enthusiasm? Whatever it was got an unintended boost when Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru entered the fray.

She posted a stern letter demanding Kaka pull down the song, otherwise she would seek legal redress.

Kaka’s song had raised old allegations against her of corruption at the National Youth Service, which she insists she was cleared of.

The lady may have reacted too fast. All the main political factions in the country had been subjected to Kaka’s diatribe. And that is ‘Wajinga Nyinyi’s’ abiding strength.

Rumours of a collision with the authorities had been circulating for days, fanned by Kaka himself. In one tweet he posted he asked fans to “please pray for the King”. Another had the words “Dear Lord”.

Then at exactly 11.08am on Tuesday morning, he tweeted: “I have just been summoned by the CID.” The tweet was speedily circulated and a hashtag, #iStandWithKaka, instantly created.

This became the mobilising cry for artistes and activists who would accompany Kaka to the DCI headquarters.

But we never summoned you, Kaka and his group, now tagged by a press posse, were told when they arrived at the DCI offices.

The Directorate put out a tweet dismissing the purported summons as “false information circulated on social media which we condemn strongly”.

It added: “Anybody wishing for publicity should be warned to desist [sic] from using @DCI_Kenya as [a] platform in seeking media attention.”

After he was turned away from DCI, Kaka went to Muthaiga police station to report a threat to his life. Really? From where? Or was this another La Mada assassination hoax?

Somebody had phoned Kaka, for sure. He has the Safaricom number on his phone to prove it.

Safaricom can conceivably trace this number and who it belongs to. Kaka had indicated that the person who called him ostensibly from DCI identified himself as a Mr Onyancha.

The man told Kaka to report to “Room 304”. Again, it’s easy to verify who works where. The DCI subsequently said they didn’t know of any such person there.

The near universal view among Kaka’s fans was that the DCI had chickened out due to the outpouring of public support for Kaka. Maybe.

Still, those who have followed the workings of that Directorate closely know it takes the summons it issues seriously.

This would have been the first time it would have been caving in to pressure from online noise.

Whatever the case, it would have been exceedingly daft of the DCI to issue such summons because of a song.

A song? What for? (One wag on Twitter offered: the DCI officers had indeed summoned Kaka — to sing for them).

Artistes the world over are known to pull publicity stunts to add fizz to their careers. Lawyers too, who have a keen eye for a client on the cusp of celebrity. (The offers to act pro bono on behalf of Kaka were staggering).

I want to give Kaka the benefit of the doubt about him pulling a promotional stunt.

A professional publicist would not have allowed the parody. Who knows what could have been going on behind Kaka’s scene?

I remember seeing lawyer-politician Ekuru Aukot of the ‘Punguza Mizigo’ initiative accompanying Kaka to the DCI and wondered where he had materialised from.

Later Aukot was in court seeking orders to terminate the extension of the BBI Taskforce mandate. These are busy lives we lead indeed.

Which brings me to the next thing. Revolution.

Ah, it’s a word I was hearing a lot about from the day #WajingaNyinyi started trending.

It amuses me when the online affectations of a bored post-teenage generation are spoken of as the stuff of the Real Thing.

Revolutions are epochal, often bloody upheavals that become etched in history. Like wars, revolutions are no picnics.

In our country, where social media engagement is a niche hustle, dreaming of a Twitter or YouTube-inspired revolution is fanciful.

The best to hope for is that Kaka’s effort and that of his peers lift awareness among a millennial population segment that is depressingly apolitical.

The supposed parallels with how the Arab Spring insurrections got ignited are moot. Here were countries living under the yoke of long-entrenched dictatorships.

If Bobi Wine has failed to crack it in neighbouring Uganda, it’s idle to expect it to happen in Kenya. It will take a lot, lot more.