Uhuru's Blockbuster 'iBelieve' Inspires Status Quo

The Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta launched his much-awaited party The National Alliance (TNA) anchored on the theme of 'iBelieve'. To his credit belief is a virtue and a very valuable ingredient in search of success. But there also begins the mischief and lack of imagination.

Belief without rebooting the mindset to embrace change is an exercise in semantic laundering. You know, TNA may as well stand for Total Non-Action or This is Not Applicable or worse still Trial Ndiyo Anaenda (Tuko Na A........).

Uhuru may have succeeded in the heavy lifting by dispensing with both Moi and Kibaki baggage but his simplistic theme of belief smacks of Moi’s mantra of all heat no light - creating an impression of motion without any trace of real movement (remember MKAE IVYO IVYO?). Status quo has never been better packaged.

True, loaded message is often delivered in simple terms albeit without being simplistic. But just like a fool who reduces love to a piece of metal fixed to the finger, it is obtusely simplistic to tell Kenyans that you wear a wrist band with the national flag colours at all times as a constant reminder of your love and commitment to your country. That was thoughtless symbolism at its best.

Surely talk is cheap when actions speak loudly otherwise. Jomo Junior sounded more like his late father regurgitating the same old vile trinity of poverty, disease and ignorance. And we are in 2012. What a shameless contradiction for a preface on belief while thoughtlessly extolling the privilege of carrying the country into the future. But at least Uhuru was brave enough to inadvertently add to his dad’s core twin vices as stitched in toxic tribalism and criminal corruption.

Simplistic belief

Reading his speech, one cannot fail to see Uhuru’s irony in preaching about the wealth of our nation’s history while the same lips twist and conveniently fail to warn of the perils of neglecting lessons from the very (dark) past. The speaker must have been comfortable preaching sandwiched between his dad's meusoleum, Uhuru Highway/Park and Mama Ngina Road.

The colonialist was fought primarily for grabbing our land and Uhuru would have led by example and from infront by addressing and offloading the massive acreage his family inherited from his father.

Here we have Uhuru shamelessly talking about past injustices and land issues when his family owns almost 20% of Coast's prime land. And his audience? The multitude landless in all part of the country who have agreed to be collectively fooled.

But I guess asking the basics out of Kenyan politicians is akin to preaching to a choir. No wonder Uhuru wrapped himself in youthful gab pontificating to his listening landless youth that the answers for a better tomorrow lie with them. That was a smart but thinly-veiled laugh at the collective Kenyan youth's grave.

And patented hypocrisy flowed when the gullible youth and audience were asked to leave the unaddressed past behind them and fly forward on the wings of (delusional) transformational change.