Sobriety is a rare virtue in a polity where corruption
is lionised as a sure way of acquiring easy wealth.
This is a county where a hairdresser ferries
sack loads of illicit cash in pickup trucks when her
clients do not even have enough in their purses.
A country where political correctness gets you
a soft loan of Sh60 million only which is
refundable in 12 months at negotiated interest.
A country where a politically correct tenderpreneur
applies for a Sh100 million unsecured loan today, gets the
approval the next day and then withdraws the loot, in cash,
the following day.
Bad debts have a basis in political correctness and
kindred corruption. Miracles still happen if you worship the
right gods in the political shrines. You can make millions of
shillings for supplying zero condoms.
From the Nairobi, Mandera, Migori, Busia, Nyamira to
Machakos counties, a ferocious bug of money mania is
biting its ‘enterprising’ victims.
The victims then spread the
largesse, as handouts, to manipulable masses.
There is a new wave of corruption-inspired
consciousness: It is that in a ‘tumbocractic’ society, money
can easily be made in politics.
Indeed, the people minting
millions of shillings, without any evidence of legit work, are
politicians or public servants. ere are also brokers who
enjoy the benefit of political correctness.
The frenzy about political ambitions ahead of the general
election, is not about leadership, or the right to vote and/or
to be voted for. It is not about exercising one’s democratic
rights.
There is something else behind this infectious seizure
of ambition.
The unscrupulous leaders are the role models of the
digital era. It was not meant to be this way.
Elective office is
about public service in well-organised societies. But during
the digital age, representation secures a vantage point for
brokerage and plunder.
It is an opportunity to expand the
distance between the politically correct tenderpreneurs
and all other hustlers.
It’s about expanding the distance
between poverty and affluence, between those who have
gotten there and all other hustlers.
During a visit to Germany in 1990 aboard Lufthansa, the
premier German airline, I shared a cabin with a colleague
who spent half the eight-hour flight bragging. The distance
between him and want, he predicted, would be as huge as
the distance between the flight up the Egyptian airspace
and the ground.
Years after the German fl ight, this friend is nursing an old
Mercedes Benz and a wreck of a BMW in front of a rented
tenement in Umoja One, Nairobi.
He is hurting, but the old
Merc reminds him he had ‘arrived’ earlier.
He is selling the
junks to raise some cash to fi nance his campaign to be area
MCA.
He has seen the ward reps, who were broke four years
ago, turn into millionaires within a short period.
He wants
to try his hand in county politics because that’s where the
loot is.
Twenty aspirants are running for Kigumo MP. The
incumbent, Jamleck Kamau, is standing for Murang’a
governor against Mwangi Wairia. e rivals have had
pitched battles, with intrigues to sabotage each other’s bid.
County garbage tucks dumped 110 tonnes of manure on the
venue Kamau launched his bid at a day earlier.
Two aspirants for the Homa Bay Town parliamentary
seat, which hosts the county headquaters, fought in what
seemed like an entertainment break.
This was a rally to
mark the second anniversary of the late Senator Otieno
Kajwang’.
One of the entertainers, who was adjudged the
underdog, Peter Kaluma, is defending his seat the best way
he knows, against his rival Washington Oganga.
But were
they fighting for leadership, or was there something behind
the impromptu wrestling match on the VIP podium?
Last week also witnessed widespread violence during
the Jubilee Party elections.
The fights were not about
party leadership and management of the 2017 elections.
There is something else behind these outbreaks of panic,
nervousness, and suspicion.
Like weaver birds building nests in readiness for the
coming harvest, the aspirants are taking positions to
continue the current plunder of public funds.