Most Kenyans think that political elections are not much different from the elections they may have had in primary school to elect a class monitor. How laughable.
I see it in the numerous cocky but extremely naïve comments both here in this blog and social media. Apparently we have a new generation of young Kenyans who know everything, especially the ones who have made a little cash from some corrupt government tender deals.
It was former influential AG Charles Njonjo who remarked as he was going down that politics is a very dirty game. Most Kenyans dismissed the statement as sour grapes, however the truth is that the man was coming to this realization rather late in his brief political career. Njonjo is a man who has his suits flown out to the UK to be dry cleaned at Saville Row. Despite his slight Kikuyu accent the man must have some pure English blood flowing through his veins, the way he behaves. The fact that he wielded immense power both during the Kenyatta and Moi days probably made him think that he was above petty politics. He was of course wrong.
Njonjo and Mwai Kibaki have always been bitter enemies despite the fact that they both served in the same cabinet for many years. However Kibaki made exactly the same mistake and has paid for it with a troubled presidency where he has to reach out for spin doctors to tell the people what he has achieved when his achievements are actually supposed to be doing the talking for him. The truth is that the president has only delivered 10 per cent of what he was capable of.
Admittedly it did not help that he hardly ever gets out of bed before 11am meaning that almost half the day is already gone. But even then Kibaki came into office with many good ideas that would have revolutionized and impacted Kenyan lives positively. This is why it is very sad that his was a presidency of under-achievement. The chief reason was simply because he thought the presidency was an office that was above politics and mostly petty politics at that.
The truth is that politics is a very dirty game indeed and a lot of the politicking is usually petty but deadly.
Let’s go back a little in time to elaborate this key point of this post. There was a leader of a nation called King Saul and one day as he rode into town with his trusted soldier called David Jesse, the women broke into songs of praise for the two men. That is where the trouble started. The King must have felt that it was wrong for his majesty to be included in songs of praise being sung for a commoner. Matters were made worse when the women (probably carried away by David’s looks, because we are told he was extremely handsome) started singing in their song that King Saul killed thousands and David killed tens of thousands. From that day the King did everything in his power to assassinate the young boy called David Jesse.
Human nature has not changed thousands of years later.
There was a leader of a nation called President Moi who went on a trip to the United States. At one point during that trip his American hosts remarked that his polished foreign minister, Robert Ouko would have made a better president of Kenya than him. (Why is it that Americans still want to measure people’s intelligence from how eloquent they are in English?). A few days later Dr Robert Ouko was dead. The mystery of his death has never been officially solved to this day.
And I can go on and on.
My point is that even as we analyze our politics let us never forget that the world over this is indeed a very ugly game (if you want to even call it a game).
To be continued. Next post: Examples of dirty politics in this election.
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And in other news, Infortrack has admitted that the recently released opinion poll results were doctored by CORD infiltraters who have since been laid off. The CEO after profusely apologizing to Kenyans further said that all those involved will be shamed once investigations have been completed.
ReplyDeleteSee Capital News website for full story.
Free thinkers and those with alternative 'lateral thinking' minds will always be vilified by those with narrow minds whose main aim is to defend their tin gods who they fear are being lambasted through a political post or commentary in this dirtyfilthy game of politics!!
ReplyDeleteWhats the use of moderating comments if the moderators get to approve comments after 24 hrs.
ReplyDeleteChris, have some faith with your readers to post comments that do not break house rules otherwise you will have monologues in KK. I know Taabu likes moderating comments but then thats why even the govt. is switching off analogue boxes. Throw the pensioner under the bus and lets have an interactive debate.
My 2 cents. Jane
Whats the use of moderating comments if the moderators get to approve comments after 24 hrs.
ReplyDeleteChris, have some faith with your readers to post comments that do not break house rules otherwise you will have monologues in KK. I know Taabu likes moderating comments but then thats why even the govt. is switching off analogue boxes. Throw the pensioner under the bus and lets have an interactive debate.
My 2 cents. Jane
Chris,
ReplyDeleteYou POOR PENSIONER, what is wrong with you?
Please
1) Leave the DUKE OF KABETESHIRE alone. He is living the life and happilly so
2) David Jesse was handsome? Kwani you are GAY in old age? LOLLEST.
3) Did you ask why Americans relate people’s intelligence with eloquent they are in English?. Are you attacking Luos or Obama for that matter? LOLEST2
4) Wewe bure kabisa kumbaff/mavi ya kuku.
Chris,
ReplyDeleteWhat did we, the people, really expect when we brought (so-called elect) pre-'02 politicians and post-'02 politicians - stripped hyenas, spotted hyenas, black-backed jackals, silver-backed jackals, side-stripped jackals, stealth vultures, candors and reticulated reptilians - together under one roof, the parliament house?
Talking of profligate political characters with a bite force quotient (BFQ) that is unmatched in the world of very dirty underground politics of Kenya.
We, the people, can't expect from our poor breed of politicians any dictionary-type explanations and clear solutions to the country's political, economic and social problems.
Tupende tusipende, we are perhaps the the only body - Jamuhuru - of collective cultures who have regarded democracy with such poverty of imagination and will in the course of the last fifty years.
That is why there are those of us who really hate to admit the obvious fact that very little is going during the post Kibaki era, all things considered.
Further, we, the people, who are usually affected by common matters have never been given a meaningful opportunity nor allowed to engage in a constructive national conservation on how to really shape our immediate geopolitical world that we have known as Kenya since the day we reached the age of reason.
So, where do we apportion the real blame for our fifty year old self-inflicted political, economic and social problems?
On dirty politics - siasa ya kukatana mingu kasoro maendeleo vijijini, mikoani, na nchini - 24/7, 365, 50 years to date, Kenyan style.
We, the people, are the resident problem - kasoro - because we are who are and have always refused to change our dirty political modi operandi since the mid-late 1960s.
Will it be any different in a post Mzee Kibaki Kenya and beyond March 4th, 2013?
With all due respect to the Duke of Kibicikushire - call it Kabeteshire or Kiambuville if you will - Sir Charles Njonjo, a man who has outsmarted, outplayed and outlived so many of his peers from Kibicikushire, the legal profession and the ever dirty politics of Kenya.
ReplyDeleteA man who at one time was a civil servant per excellence and commanded a lot of respect within the judiciary, entire civil service, business community, tight clusters of settlers, among Kenyans from all walks of life, and the British FCO.
But unfortunately, he is a man who will always be remembered as a smart individual who later allowed his bloated ego to get the best of him when his career and personal political ambitions were boosted further during the post Kenyatta adminstration.
At a critical time when he sold out big time in the hopes that his presidential aspirations could become fulfilled with the passing of time once the chips had fallen in the right place with the help of his foreign friends and associates in high places, as he had calculated and hoped for.
The Duke of Kibicikushire or 'Sir Charles Njonjo'as he was known at the time, a man who had a real fetish for monogrammed suits and clothings, cufflinks, handkerchiefs, briefcase, stationary, cat mats, etc deserve what he got in terms of falling from grace and consequently being haunted into political fields of oblivion.
The Duke of Kibicikushire may have been sidelined by his very powerful and well entrenched political rivals, people who never had Kenya's best interests at heart, but it turned out to be a real blessing in disguise for the whole country.
His rivals at time, some of who were really disliked and hated by the common mwananchi, turned out to be the lesser evil given the scope of political maneuvers and nationwide wholesale political, economic and social changes that the Duke of Kibicikushire had drawn on his blueprint for the entire nation had he got tasted raw power as intended.
Top this day, his surviving rika, including other Kenyans who were in their early-mid-late teens, 20s, 30s and 40s, as well as many people who were in politics, military, police force, intelligence community, foreign service, business community, et al, at the time, did not have the slightest clue that the republic of Kenya would have ended up under the firm control and mighty thumb of tight clusters of settler elite from Britain and South Africa with the protection of the conglomerates and their ever powerful security apparatus.
Luckily, the head of the country's adminstration at the time, a lesser political evil and tyrant by all accounts, prevailed with the help of the Americans who were more concerned with the events in the Horn of Africa, given their strategic insterests during the Cold War, than the general welfare of the Kenyans and the establishment of real democracy in Kenya.
The Duke of Kibicikushire, also known as 'Sir Charles Njonjo' by many of peer and admirations, deserved what he got and should be counting his blessings for having survived where million of his rika have perished courtesy of Mother Nature and one of her twin sisters, named the Cycle of Life.