Am beginning to feel the chills in the preparations for the 2012 general elections. I have always contemplated and wondered what has been wrong with the Kenyan public. Either we are plain stupid or we don’t really care what happens on our national political grounds to the extend that we fall for the same lies, tribal political alliances and for the same political leadership that has failed us since time in memorial.
I hail from a small town in Kajiado County – Entasopia. What beats my mind about this small town is the campaign agenda that has dominated its politics since, well, cant remember. The same question has been that of the road. Despite being the bread basket of the region and also managing to produce horticultural vegetables for export which generate millions in revenue round the year, the requests for the tarmacking of a road less than forty kilometers that currently takes one two hours to navigate in a land cruiser has been repeated over and over again every five years since I was old enough to listen to and remember political rallies. It has been sung in songs, recited in poems, wrote in petitions and spoken in speeches.
All these efforts always received one answer, elect me and it will be done. Then there will be sugar and lesos for the women, some money for the elders – for drinks obviously, and some money for the youths – which the elders will use for drinks. There will be an applauded announcement that the relief food distributed last year was courtesy of him though Government of Kenya and not for sale was printed all over the sacks and tins.
We sing the same song and tick beside the same name on our ballot papers election after election; he deserves one more chance after all he fed us during the drought. Only to curse and pray in one breath when the old bus we are travelling in hits a rock and goes off. We have to sleep on the road tonight.
The truth is, the MP for this small village I credit with my roots has been the longest serving VP in Kenya, minister of finance, minister of education and is now holding two ministerial positions among many other top ministerial positions. If he wanted to do it, he would have, more than twenty years ago.
So I come back to the same thought. We are either plain stupid as a people of Entasopia and a nation at large or we don’t give a damn about the issues that matter to the extend that we are easily fooled and wooed deeper and deeper into the same crater of tribal politics and underdevelopment that we get so verbal about when the camera is on us.
This story does not end here……… it relates to our national politics in later posts
