Let’s pass the goat ribs, GlenRware Special, we flee from Jubilee woes

It’s time to eat, drink and make merry. Let’s do it without restraint; with wild abandon that, for the moment, it will take us away from hell on earth to nirvana right here on terra firma.

’Tis the season to have fun and transport our minds to lands far, far away. Away from poverty amidst plenty; away from the theft of public resources; away from the dishonest, lying crooks we entrusted with leadership; away from the pain of collapsing of public institutions and rampant crime...

A little escapism every once in a while can be good for the soul. But the hedonism will last only a few days before we come back down to earth with a fearsome bump.

January will come with bills to pay. I’m not here talking about the school fees, house rents, grocery and utility bills that, as night follows day, bring us back to reality, but the price we must pay for electing to office scoundrels, who are hell-bent on destroying this country.

In the run-up to the festive season, some fellow who calls himself King Kaka shot to fame and notoriety with his Wajinga Nyinyi song. Many of us seemed to think that the brutal lyrics were excoriating political leaders from the ‘other’ side.

Some of us embraced King Kaka under the mistaken belief that his target was our rivals. To get the true picture, we need to change the title of the song, or poem, from Wajinga Nyinyi to Wajinga Sisi (from ‘You Fools’ to ‘Us Fools’). Yes, we are the foolish idiots (pardon the tautology).

As we were told not too many years ago, choices have consequences. Kenya accords us the sacred duty to elect leaders of our choice. Instead of progressive, visionary leaders, we elect looters, warmongers and ethnic mobilisers. We, hence, choose poverty, corruption, misrule, economic collapse, crime and dysfunctional social systems.

We can sit here wailing about our terrible condition and the broken promises and shattered dreams of the Uhuru Kenyatta-William Ruto regime, but let us never, for a moment, forget that these fellows did not shoot their way into the presidency. We put them there.

We were herded like blind unthinking sheep into voting for our ethnic kingpins in an alliance against ‘enemy’ ethnic formations.

Never did we pause to consider that we were being conned. We were conditioned by vile, evil and crude propaganda on ethnic radio stations and church pulpits to hate not just the candidates from the rival groupings, but their entire communities.

It was ‘us versus them’, and we foolishly believed that a Jubilee government would be ‘ours’. We suffered delusions that we would have ownership of the government — which, in turn, would favour us with all the goodies that come with being privileged ‘steakholders’.

Our pockets would be ripping open under the weight of solid cash from our coffee tea, maize, goats, milk, chicken, miraa, sugar, banana, fish and whatever other produce that would attract favourable pricing and guaranteed markets.

Our special regions would be bursting at the seams with roads, bridges, water pipes, electricity lines, hospitals, schools, sports stadiums, skyscrapers, factories and other indicators of development. Of course, all this would happen at the expense of the other fellows, who tried to block our birthright to monopoly of the national cake.

Now we are bitter and angry because none of that came to pass and we are just as poor as ever. We’re actually worse off with Jubilee’s spectacular destruction of the economy, which was brought back from the dead within just a short time of President Mwai Kibaki taking over from President Daniel arap Moi.

We are confused because we see President Kenyatta embracing the opposition leader, Raila Odinga, whom he conditioned us to hate. Further confusion is that some of us thought State House was personal property for Mr Kenyatta to bequeath Deputy President Ruto, and the cycle of two communities exchanging the seat of power continuing into perpetuity.

Looks like that is not happening. We celebrate Christmas and the New Year knowing that we will recover from our hangovers to go back into that state of flux.

With Uhuru country rejecting Uhuru and Ruto minions in rebellion and opposing everything the government does, we have an administration in implosion and completely ill-equipped to fix the mess it has created.

The Uhuru-Raila Building Bridges Initiative promises to craft a new Kenya, but looks like it will just set the stage for fresh political infighting.

Pass some of those goat ribs, and the GlenRware Special Reserve. Will the last person to leave please switch off the lights?