After the Willy Mutunga Supreme Court dismissed the 2013 presidential petition, Raila Odinga, the petitioner, said: "Don't cry for me; cry for Kenya."
The patriotic statement was foreboding. Kenya is bleeding a decade later. The Covid-19 pandemic, now in its second year, has added ruin to a regressing economy.
The global pandemic offers a good excuse, but it does not wholly explain the crisis. There is mass youth unemployment, rising debt burden, drought, famine, insecurity, poor healthcare, soaring energy costs, high cost of doing business, corruption, wobbling prosecution, and indecisive investigation of crimes against the economy.
Not all the tears flooding the polity are genuine. Some are shedding crocodile tears, hoping 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 around Nairobi's Ukulima Market, and the jobless youth. The cry for bottomers is an emotional bait for the gullible.
Crocodile tears - yes they display reptilian hypocrisy, and hyperbolic idiocy. Some politicians cry before they ride on your susceptibility. A crocodile sheds tears before eating 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 what happens in between elections.
Jubilee promised a double-digit growth economy in 2013. The regime promised international standard stadia in every county. It still has nine more months to fulfil some of these lofty promises.
The UhuRuto regime pledged to invest in agriproduction to boost food security. Galana Kulalu irrigation scheme, in Tana River county, was to showcase the resolve of the self-styled digital government to address food security. The model 10,000-acre farm has failed its value timelines.
The implementer, the National Irrigation Authority, fell out with the Israeli contractor Green Arava over payments, leading to termination of the contract. The September 2014 contact sum was Sh14,545,106,963. The project is five years behind the March 2016 completion date. This was two years before the handshake, which the DP blames for the flop of Jubilee campaign promises.
Jubilee promised laptops for Standard 1 to 8 pupils - a signature plank of the power duo. The 2013 campaign shoutfest still echoes with another version this season of campaign promises.
The laptop promise collapsed five years before the March 9, 2018, handshake between President Uhuru Kenyatta and ODM leader Raila Odinga. This was seven years before the Building Bridges Initiative, which the DP blames for derailing the UhuRuto promises.
The digital goalpost has changed, from 21st century technologies back to wheelbarrows. The seashore shift begs interrogation – once bitten citizens should be twice shy.
They promised industrial parks in Naivasha, and other places, which were supposed to employ 100,000 people. The Naivasha industrial park would specialise in leather and textile. There is no such a park in Naivasha, about a decade after the promise.
Jubilee also promised 1 million jobs per year, and double-digit annual growth, in a Sh3 trillion budget economy. The economy is bad and debt-ridden, with a Sh1 trillion budget deficit. Creditors are demanding trillions of shillings in due debt repayment. The Treasury is digging new holes to fill up old ones. Architects of these challenges cannot be the solution.
History is stubborn. Politicians who are remembered for false promises should not get away with new baits. The collective memory of the electorate cannot be that feeble. Wake up!
