Can We Do An "Obama" In Kenya?

It is interesting that at a time when I am grieving so much over personal issues and what would have been, my mind goes back to that great friend of mine that I always talk about here. His name was "G" and those who have been on Kumekucha long enough know that he hailed from Luo Nyanza (although that was never an issue in our friendship, not even for a half a minute) and you also know that a lone gunman walked into his Nairobi office one evening in 2005 and pumped bullets into him.

Well, G had a striking resemblance to President elect Barack Obama. The way he talked, the shape of his head, the looks, even the smile etc. The only big difference was that my friend was very much on the dark side.

As I write this I wonder what he would have said about the Obama revolution in the United States. He was a skeptic, my friend and I watched as he struggled to look at things positively from the moment he discovered how important one's mental attitude is when somebody is seeking good results in anything.

Still he would have no doubt pointed to the enormous task the son of Kogello has before him. I can almost hear him laugh and say “Chris, our brother has been fed a suicide pass, why lie.” In rugby a suicide pass is where you hold onto the ball until your most brutal opponents are right next to your team mate and then you toss the ball to him. What happens next is painful but highly predictable and expected.

In other words the world is too messed up for even President Obama to do much to reverse the fortunes. The poor guy has been given the instruments of power in a house that is already burning down... fast.

But what is really in my mind today is how you and I can do an Obama on the current political class right here in Kenya. I mean haven't we just had enough of these guys even as they play out that circus over the Waki report? I know I have, so much so that I find it difficult these days to sit down and write any serious analysis of Kenyan politics, because it will always involve those selfish, self serving hyenas in sheep's clothing. And I am talking right across the political divide.

Well for those interested in dreaming with me please feel free to join in (you will remember that Obama's march to the White House started as a hilarious dream and that in this very blog, yours truly was laughed off for suggesting that the upstart would ever win the democratic nomination, let alone a ticket to the White House).

One key thing that will be required will be cash. And lots of it. There is no way you can run a decent campaign for State House without lots of cash. Now here we can borrow a leaf from Obama's magical fund raising machine. It was mostly done on the World Wide Web using viral marketing techniques and the huge fortunes were mostly raised in $20s and even lower denominations and contributions from ordinary folks.

Can the same be done in Kenya? Can just 10 million of the estimated over 15 million Kenyans roughly aged between 18 and 35 years old raise an average of Kshs 100 each? That will give our campaign kitty some serious cash would it not?

But there are other more urgent questions to ask. Are Kenyans even ready to do an Obama in the land where Obama originated from?

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