Tag Archives: Corruption

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Chronicles from the land of the happiest people on earth

Is a novel by Wole Soyinka which I highly recommend. The mix of corruption, officialdom and religiosity has been done so masterfully that occasionally one finds themselves laughing out loud. There is a place in the book he talks about choice and the example he gives is so riveting. I will quote it here verbatim.

[…]You see, you are sitting on top of this mud hill, and they are swarming all over you, crawling, rushing, racing with one another, columns and columns of them, getting more and more disturbed. When you disturb them, they begin to sting. You climb higher and higher, and finally there is nowhere else to go. And could they sting! The soldier ants, and the ones we call fire ants, who not only sting and bite but leave a painful red blister behind- yes, they begin their work. All that so called man courage is gone. The fire ants, you didn’t know, they had already traveled up your trouser legs….

So what choice you get? Nuttin’ at all. First you take off your trousers, but it is already too late. The soldier ants are already entangled with the hair of your blockos! You simply must take off your trousers, then the underpants. This is not in one corner-corner place where you can hide yourself, it is in public of other people, men and women, even children. But you must take off those trousers… so much for the neighbour you once slap for poking her nose in your family affairs! She’s looking at your real family affair and there is nothing you can do about it.

WS,

But the ending of the story reminded me of the dispute between a man and his ego/soul following the betrayal of the gong o four by Farodion.

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To my fellow countrymen and women

First I will start by saying majority of the voting public is insane irrational. In 2013, I wrote an open letter to those who can read imploring you it would have been much better to vote in a dead cow than the duo running for president at that time. Kenyans, millions of them, thinking they were defying the ICC and other western governments overwhelmingly voted for the Uhuruto duo and if that wasn’t bad enough, the Mutunga Supreme Court gave them a shot of legitimacy by validating their win and so we got stuck with an incompetent, corrupt and irresponsible duo.

Again in 2017, a good proportion of the public having seen the mega corruption scandals, ineptitude, the claw back on basic freedoms and rights, decided that the duo were the best placed to rule this country and on 26th of October voted overwhelmingly in an election where only one candidate was running to give him a birthday present. Fools will do what fools do.

2020 is here with us. It is not the best of times. It will take Covid19 to show the weak underbelly of this regime. It has been said by others more eloquent and brave than I that Uhuruto are incompetent, corrupt, irresponsible and illiberal. At this time of crisis, these four things will come to the fore. You remember the Afya House scandal involving medical equipment running to billions of shillings. The dams scandal. Eurobond. SGR. All these are coming to bite now. The government of incompetents will not be capable of pulling together the right talent to steer the country out of this mess because the only people who are willing to work with the duo are thieves. Or potential thieves.

Having no safety nets and a broke treasury means those Kenyans who will lose their jobs have nowhere to go. The impact of that on law and order I leave to sociologists to address. A corrupt government means that even if money were made available it would not reach those most in need. In short, we are fucked and as has been said so many times before, choices have consequences.

As we sit at home to ponder our next moves, maybe it is also time we reconsider our choices for representatives. It may go along way to making the difference between life and death.

I leave you with this passionate letter from V to us all.

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Politicians and the church in Kenya

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

There is a storm brewing in my backyard, but it is all smokes and mirrors.

For some time now, churches have always invited politicians, including the dee pee,  and the well to do in the community to their fundraising activities. You all know god wants money. So one would ask, why is there trouble? One, the dee pee question (if you know, you know). Reports show he has been too generous leading many people to question the source of his wealth. Well, we generally have an idea but we would want to hear him say it.

Why is the storm all smokes and mirrors? A section of the church goers are complaining that politicians have taken over their pulpits. But this is a half truth or just a plain lie. Churches, clergy and the general population in most events treat politicians as demigods. They get deferential treatment at gatherings and are usually offered opportunity to speak wherever. In church, you have a captive audience and any politician would use such an occasion to push his agenda.

After receiving millions of shillings from politicians and other bureaucrats, clergy and their sheeple have now developed a conscience and do not want this money. Well, not happening. The good archbishop of the ACK church has said they want the money, but please be quiet about it. A cross-section of the population have however interpreted this to mean the good bishop is saying no to politicians and any stolen money. One would think only politicians are guilty of sleaze, but this is not true.

My fellow countrymen and women should stop being hypocrites. We all know god wants money. And wants a lot of it. For what I don’t know. Out of 175 countries ranked, Kenya is ranked 144. And it is not the case that only the political class is driving this corruption. We all are. And last I checked, the world factbook gives this break down of religious affiliation Christian 83% (Protestant 47.7%, Catholic 23.4%, other Christian 11.9%), Muslim 11.2%, Traditionalists 1.7%, other 1.6%, none 2.4%, and unspecified at 0.2% of the population, as estimated in 2009, which can only be translated that it is driven by religious people. They make the majority. So why pretend that you don’t want dirty money in your churches?

I say. let the religious people stop pretending they have developed some spine. Moi always went to a church, was thought of as one of the most religious people in Ke but presided over plunder, unsolved murders and so on. Kibaki no different. Muigai and Ruto are all Christians but have presided over plunder of a nation not seen before in this country since the beginning of self-rule. Well, maybe not as much as Kamau wa Ngengi grabbed land. Just keep inviting the politicians to your churches, we understand your gods/ parsons want money,  and the politicians want a captive audience, which the church provides. It is win- win. God/ parsons get money. The politician gets a captive audience.

End of Thursday sermon.

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how long will we survive this government?

As I have said elsewhere, the worst that can happen to a collective, say, a nation-state is to have leaders who are incompetent, clueless, murderous and rent seeking. The Jubilee administration is all the above and worse. It’s a government whose officials have taken a vow to plunder the country till it goes bust.

How, for example, do you explain aviation fuel with 5 million dollars disappearing into thin air? And that is the least of their crimes. We cannot tell the extent of the grand larceny that is taking place within this government. It will take ages and a different regime to uncover the theft that these thieves have gotten away with since 2013, though this, too, is only a dream. The same wolves are busy positioning themselves to stay at the helm to either continue stealing or to make sure they are not prosecuted or both.

In this day, we have our countrymen and women dying from starvation while those responsible are busy stealing public funds. To imagine people in Baringo, from where Moi, who ruled for 24 years die of hunger is evidence of the moral bankruptcy of our leaders. How bereft of ideas they are and of course, how useless.

As Ndii has opined, I think the level of graft, no, theft this government has committed against is qualifies to be called crimes against humanity.

Maybe, this post that I wrote a while ago is still relevant.

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On politics

 

In a few months we will be having general elections here where we are to elect among others the president, the vice president, senators, governors, members of parliament (MPigs), and county representatives. And from the look of things, the presidential contest has come from national issues to almost a tribal contest. Parties that had earlier in the year vowed to have their own presidential candidates are fighting over each other to endorse the presidential candidate of their choice. I have nothing against the mergers but so far they look to me as political expediency and a fight to remain politically relevant after 2013 and this is what I detest. There seems to me a lack of party ideology and the desires and thoughts of the represented do not matter to those we have elected to represent us.

It is time, for democracy to make sense, for us to have regular town or county hall meetings with the representatives of the people where they are made accountable to those who put them there in the first place. It is time Members of Parliament stopped hawking their tribes men and women like they don’t matter. This has to stop and the time is right to change this attitude among our elected leaders by taking a decisive action of not reelecting them to the august house.

The executive must appear to respect the rule of law, that is if it doesn’t which is the case many times anyway. The president can’t bend backwards to be blackmailed by greedy MPigs to sign into law, a bill that allows them to take home obscene amounts of money as pay off package for having done nothing for us to be proud of. This is the same government that asked the teachers, doctors and lecturers to go back to work without pay and then shamelessly vote for an increase in tax which they don’t pay and increase their allowances by not consulting the Salaries and Remuneration Commission. There are a number of MPs who are busy telling us they oppose the vote head, they must first explain where they were when the vote was taken and we must know their contributions on the same matter or they better shut the hell up!

The following candidates have expressed interest in being the president of the republic in the next election. They are Uhuru Kenyatta, Musalia Mudavadi, Peter Kenneth, Martha Karua, Kalonzo Musyoka, William Ruto, Mutavya Musimi, Raila Odinga, Prof. Ole Kiyiapi and Charity Ngilu. A lot has been said on each of these candidates and I am going to add my two cents on a few of them and you don’t have to agree with me.

Uhuru Kenyatta and Ruto are visitors of the court in the Hague, Netherlands for crimes against humanity following the disputed 2007 general election. It has been argued by their supporters they are innocent till proven guilty, which I don’t refuse, but by being suspects the most honorable thing for them to do is to hold their horses and wait for the outcome of their cases unless they are saying integrity and rule of law should go and hang. Political scientists and lawyers can interpret it they way they want, I say fuck them. These two gentlemen, if they can be called that, do not deserve to be in the ballot. If they can’t do the honorable thing then we must by use of our ballots show them we don’t want them in the house on the hill. It is up to you!

Musalia Mudavadi stands for nothing, hasn’t given as a proper account of the Goldenberg money which we lost when he was minister for finance. He is thus disqualified for having been adversely mentioned in the tribunal and it was recommended he has a case to answer. This gentleman cannot lead us to a better Kenya. He represents the status quo and he can go and hang as well or continue to represent his constituents if they have no one better to elect!

Madame Martha Karua has over the years appeared to stand for some ideal. My contention with her is at the time when she was fighting for Kibaki in the 2007 dispute, she kept insisting we go to court which her and all those who supported her knew very well were far from independent. How do we trust her to ensure there is fairness in the face of the law when we elect her as president?

There is nothing to be said about Madame Charity Ngilu except she would do well by being governor of Eastern where she has worked day and night to ensure there is access to clean water.

The current vice president, Kalonzo Musyoka is beyond his sell by date as a politician. He has been in parliament as long as I can remember and there is nothing worthwhile that he has done to the people he represents in parliament. This gentleman stands for nothing, represents no one except his stomach and his selfish needs. It is time the people of Kiambu and the nation sent him to retire and take care of his cows if he has any! We are better of without this man in parliament.

Mutavya Musimi during his heydays at Ufungamano was a civil rights activists and went to parliament and became a sycophant. We don’t need him as a president.

Raila Odinga has over time told us he fought for the freedoms we enjoy now. Nobody denies this fact, he didn’t fight for them alone and he may have suffered a lot in person or with his family but that does not mean he should become our president. The world is full of many others who fought for freedoms and did not run for president or those who became presidents and left their countries worse off. The last five years he has been an equal partner with the president, what has been his performance in respect ,to among others, in alleviating poverty, improving security, access to resources? Has he been in the fore front to fight nepotism? I doubt it. The government is full of his cronies and sycophants. He must come clean on the Maize Scandal and Kazi Kwa Vijana which both fall under his office. He keeps telling us he will fight corruption, what proof do we have of this if the ministers in his ODM section of government have been implicated in corruption and he has taken no action. The constitution states we shall have not more than 25 ministers, if he wanted to lead by example, what stopped him from reducing the size of government on the ODM side?  Recently he has been see to associate with Miana Njega, a fellow who confessed to having been the leader of an illegal outfit, Mungiki, who are accused of among others rape, robberies, extortion, forceful oath taking and so many other crimes. Is he doing this for political expediency? What is the message he is passing to his supporters and the Kenyan populace at large? On this account and many others, I think he should disqualify himself from the race.

Peter Kenneth has to account for his wealth. To the best of my knowledge he has worked in the civil service in the provincial administration. Untill then, he can remain an MPig.

Ole Kiyiapi to me represents the only viable option for a president. Whether he can win is another matter altogether.