OKECH: It’s season of bedbug killers

The people who should know have cautioned you. It's now up to you if you surrender, willingly, into the welcoming claws of the nyang'aus of politics.

Ordinary voters are frustrating the efforts of those who prefer an alternative lifestyle for the majority. Politicians have joined the fray to trap the desperate and the greedy.

The frustration of good intentions peaks when accomplices of mass exploiters suffer deficit of conscience. There can, certainly, be an alternative lifestyle. One that only 'leaders' who think about the next generation can appreciate.

The avalanche of politicians is preoccupied with August 9—the Ballot Day. How fast better times come for the many, who are easy to fool, will depend on how soon voters understand they can pull themselves up.

They can simply do that by listening, thinking and asking the right questions, especially to incumbents. Some of the incumbents are running for higher offices, in spite of massive abuse of public trust.

Even errant woman representatives have boarded the deception bandwagon. Women were, until recently, underrepresented in the roll of suspects.

There is a woman rep in western Kenya whose office cannot account for the Sh640,000,000 it has received for 10 years on behalf of eight constituencies in her county.

The politician is using proceeds of corruption to con her way to the county booty. Yet she knows voters know she is complicit in the sabotage of devolution: she is messing the county assembly, as the governor plunders the executive.

Voters must demand accountability. It's they, alone, who can change their destiny. But politicians, the usual suckers, love it when their victims are gullible.

Will this season of shameless deception be different?

Evidence of unconscionable political idiocy abounds. Bedbug killers are sprouting, from Kisumu to Homa Bay, from Nandi to Kilifi, from Mandera to Busia.

Politicians are showing their yet unknown generous side. It's strategic generosity, but cynics know there is no free lunch. The sudden upsurge of generosity is a chameleonic trap.

Chameleons take the colour of the environment, before opening their mouths, and stretching their tongues to trap their prey.

Those chameleons are crocodilian.

The tears flooding the polity are crocodilian. The owners hope for an infectious memory loss among the electorate. Politicians weep for the poor, but some are happy with the status quo.

They moan for mama mboga, boda boda riders, mkokoteni pushers, and the jobless youth. The cry for bottomers is an emotional bait for the gullible.   

Crocodiles often display reptilian hypocrisy, and hyperbolic idiocy. Some politicians cry before they ride on your susceptibility, like a crocodile sheds tears before devouring its prey.

Mendacious politicians make promises they don't intend to keep. They inebriate the electorate with lies, propaganda, dubious promises, handouts and assorted compromises. Promise-makers paint a glossy future that has scant bearing on reality.

The campaign slogan for a parliamentary aspirant from Seme is 'Mogo E Mesa'. He is dishing out two-kg bags of flour to con the poor. Another parliamentary aspirant from Karachuonyo has adopted 'Alufu Gi Mogo' as his campaign slogan. He is bribing voters with Sh1,000, and two kilos of posho meal.

Seme and Karachuonyo are homes to distinguished professionals and scholars like Prof Francis Aduol and Prof Shem Wandiga. Handouts feed the bedbug theory of politics.

The typical politician does not see beyond the biting bedbug. They want to come again and again to con their victims. Their world revolves around assorted promises, compromises, and manipulation of the public psyche.

More often than not they get away with lies because we, the people, fall easily to deception. We so easily forget the abuses of public offices of yesterday.