Parliament, true enemy of the people

One old woman in a tiny village of Koredo, in Karachuonyo Constituency where I was born, once lectured me on the benefits of the new constitution long before August 4 Referendum. According to her remote understanding, under the new constitution the government would be putting food on every table where someone cared to sit. Qualified and well paid physicians would be combing villages for patients while there would be a teacher for every two pupils. If there was a road untamacked, that would be a footpath between two huts in a backwater village of Kanyamkago. Jenifer Opapa is the old woman. 

 

 President kibaki displaying the signed sealed constitution

 

My good lecturer even insinuated that the government would hire researchers to come up with pills for treating old age. People like her would be living longer than Methuselah. She continued that the constitution had identified enormous hidden treasures which would be exploited to create employment for everyone who had education that allowed one to write his/her name. If one cared to drop out of Primary Six, there would be a job for him. In her utopian enthusiasm, dropping out of high school would attract an automatic consummate job. The government would employ cobblers, stone-cutters, barbers, fishermen, seamstresses, painters, among other professionals in that category. But this category is what I call the people. Our constitution is a people driven constitution. Had I listened a minute longer, Jenifer Opapa would have convinced me that the government was planning to raise the dead and give them jobs. Those who were never decently interred and could not resurrect, would be exhumed and reburied. 

When I took a survey of opinion around the village, I learnt that most villagers who composed what the Chilean poet and president, Pablo Neruda, would have called the people, had much utopian belief in the constitution. One fisherman, Onyango Ongere, fondly referred to as ‘Indivijuol’ because he stubbornly held that ‘individual’ means a very huge person (mostly a woman), quipped that the new constitution required the government to refill Lake Victoria with Nile Perch every time he overfished them. I realized that it was not a joking matter when Onyango almost shook me up with ‘indivijuol’ blow for laughing off the sacrosanct constitution. Now the government was going to fill Nam Lolwe (Lake Victoria) with Okoko, Sire, Kamongo (catfish), Seu, Ngege (tilapia), Omena (fingerling fish), Mumi (mud-fish), Fuani, and Ningu? Indivijuol was talking about environmental conservation and protection of endangered species in another dialect spoken by the people.

 

 The Constitution of Kenya

I have a granduncle called Benedicto Amayo who since I was a child has specialised in cotton growing. The cotton from Benedicto’s and Plister’s farms was always spinned at now defunct Homabay Cotton Ginnery, formerly owned by Eng. Phillip Okundi the chair of Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK). In one of those utopian moments, Benedicto said with certainty that cotton would be whiter and heavier in the New Republic ushered by the new constitution. He added that all weevils and cotton ball worms would be poisoned by the new constitution. How would do you discuss new constitution objectively with these disciples of Inviolate CoE Covenant?

The land bordering the lake shore in Koredo is very fertile. It produces very good potatoes – those that grow bigger than Indivijuol’s head. After harvesting season, we used to graze goats, sheep, and cattle on the pastures of remnant potato shoots. My uncle (according to extended family tree) Osambo Agali maintained that potato blight, mad-cow, and foot and mouth diseases would be cured by the New Constitution. He continued that  agricultural field extension officers who used to traverse the country during Nyayo era would get field operation manuals in the new constitution, which they would use to exorcise these malignant diseases. These people believed in the ‘Holy Ghost’ of the new constitution. Is this not a tangible ‘spirit’ of the constitution?

The local winds in our Kokoth Kataa ward were very unfriendly for the local councillor who was rumoured to have pillaged some funds from the local town council which he used to secure some favours for his younger wife. At that point, Mzee Owii Ogallo shook his head at the portending misfortune that would befall the civic leader. The civically aware, Mzee said that Chapter Six of the constitution recommended hanging for the councillor while Sexual Offenses Act will send him for castration because he was polygamous. Mzee also said that the councillor had better retired because immediately after the promulgation, our local councilor would be jobless for lack of a university degree. 

Among the blind one-eyed is a king. One retired primary school teacher, possibly the most civic aware and the only person who tried to read the constitution, remarked with authority that it gave no room for one person to vie for two positions. “Once you declare your interest for presidency, you cannot be nominated for even county representative”, he said with educated enthusiasm. With that stroke of genius, Justina Onyango, a 90 year old Catholic faithful made sign of the cross punctuated by supplicant's smile. The grateful yet prayerful smile you paint over your face (with specific focus on the extending corners of the mouth) when your prayers have been answered. Gershon Nyabwa, aka Opuk the Tortoise, who is my cousin, promised to teach Kalonzo of the Wiper fame how to fish once he failed to clinch presidency.

The most educated villager is a secondary school teacher who peddles Chemistry at Koredo Secondary School and fancies the rather lofty title of ‘professor’ from adoring village ignoramuses. Josiah aka professor happened to have selectively read Political Parties Act 2011 which he claimed outlawed coalition before elections. I wondered how this guy bogged down by those intimidating Schrodinger equations applied to determine the volume of protons, neutrons, electrons and the atom itself, got time to read the lengthy literature which is more of a legal treatise. This lone ‘professor’ who spends most of his time quarreling the Russian scientist Amakonikov for inventing tedious Amakonikov’s rules for naming those long grotesque organic compounds with double axial chirality centers, contiaing phenols and kenols as constituent radicles, had impeccable knowledge of that boring document and must needs lecture the villagers about it. The good professor of Koredo Secondary School (which has no laboratory) ascertained that coalitions formed out of parochial tribal interest will be a thing of the past. 

If you were the one listening to inhabitants of Koredo Village, you would likely get killed for alleging that God didn’t hand down the new Constitution together with the Ten Commandments to Moses at Mt Sinai. I knew better than argue with fundamentalist religious followers of the inviolate CoE Covernant. When Mzee Owii Ogallo began to expound what he made of the Bill of Rights, I rolled my eyes to heaven for divine wisdom to keep my tongue tightly locked withing the jail cell of my teeth. I didn’t want to witness firsthand fury in defense of heavenly constitution. My disbelief and unfaith would attract punishment worse than that meted out on the immoral twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. So, I paid silent attention to Lot in the person of Jaduong Owii. The more reason as to why I kept quiet is because if heavens took to long to punish me for skepticism, there would be immediate Inquisition (sanctioned by Pope Owii) with certainty of finding undeniable guilt. But that is the last thing I want from the people who burnt both the local post office and petrol station as a result of stolen elections. They would dispatch me to pieces, pulverize the peaces to powder and scatter me in the four Biblical winds.

Let me take you back to Mzee Owii’s version of Bill of Rights under the sacred Constitution. He religiously opined that issues like; right to life, Education, food, fair court trial; freedom of assembly, association, expression, thought, among others were just preliminary fiddlesticks. There is the Right to Transport which includes land, water, and air media. Flying without a chopper crash or plying Likoni without ferry drowning incidents, and boarding OTC to Nairobi and everywhere else without road carnage would be guaranteed by the Almighty Constitution. If any of those accidents ever occurred, the government had to be replaced for incompetence. You must know that the last time Mzee Owii went to Nairobi he boarded buses managed by Overseas Trading Company (OTC). He didn’t even hear of Nyayo Bus and Kenya Bus services. How can you argue with thet old geezer under the current technological dispensation of twitter, MySpace, Facebook, Skype, and YouTube, with such unsaintly gadgets as ipads, smartphones, tablets, and that new Microsoft gadget called Surface?  You could see village sages nodding sagaciously every time Mzee Owii opened his mouth.

To cut a long story short, obviously August 4^th came and my village voted religiously with promises of paradise on Earth abound. Now, I have to go back to the village and meet Constitution faithfuls in the persons of ‘Indivijuol’, Opuk the Tortoise, Jenifer Opapa, Justina Onyango,Mzee Benedicto Amayo, Mzee Owii, teacher John Mbewa. I never really want bump into ‘professor’ for the reason that he is the only one in the village with a smart phone, and is properly updated with the amendments the sacred Constitution has experienced.These are real people in my village and I profusely apologize for not seeking their consent before writing this article. To mark the anniversary of promulgation, I will travel on August 26^th to meet my peole the following day.Thank God they never sue people for making them famous. They will slaughter a goat from Benedicto’s herd, a Nile Perch meal from Indivijuol’s net, and busaa from Nyauyoma and Mbeke Breweries Ltd. Then this is what I will tell the CoE Covenant faithfuls:

My people, elders, fathers, brothers, sisters, and in-laws, I am back among you with not so good tidings about you New Found Faith. Two year ago this day, your Faith gave birth to a new Republic a mid jubilation at Uhur Park. I know you would have all loved to witness the actual birth but our version of OTCs broke down and kill more people than ever. Mzee Owii, the OTCs are smaller and are agents of first degree mass murder. That kind of murder can only be called genocide since only poeple from one trible die. The perishing tribe is called wananchi. By the way, I saw an ugly crying statue of wanainchi called Wanjiku in front of Supreme Court premises. She is crying for justice, which is very rare these days. The priviledged tribe are so few that only air transport befits them. Even so, they too die a privilged death in air OTCs called choppers or Eurocopters. Now, your Right to Transport, and safe transport at that, is limited to animal transport, mainly donkeys. They don’t drink petrol (a rare and unaffordable commodity these days) but are relatively confortable, if you choose to ignore scorching sun and raging floods. If they deign to cause accident, it would only be modest kick, something we can put up with once in a while. Mzee Owii, with all due respect, you are in twight years. You can’t survive a feeble donkey kick. So, I do encourage you to use ‘footsubishi’. In Nairobi they called it Route 11 or treking.

 

 Statue of Wanjiku

Good people of Koredo, Mama Jenifer Opapa talked of Right to Food and the government’s commitment to conveying food to every table where a soul cares to sit. In that aspect, tidings aren’t pleasant either. Just last year, a community called Turkana, two hundred times larger than Koredo, perished due to starvation. The government of the New Republic maintained they constipated to death and admonished them to check their eating habits. The Turkanas were told that eating rats, emaciated donkeys, and meat oozing with worms improves digestion. Being Nilotic people and not Chinese, their chief lamented loud enough for the PS  Ministry of Provincial Administration and Internal Security to sack him. Had it not been for good business people called Kenya 4Kenya, there wouldn’t be Turkana people today. Hope is not in vain, Turkana gods instantly created oil blocks under the soil of the starving people. Even if they don’t have water, they will drink oil. Mama Jenifer, I should warn you that it is not cooking oil but the kind that OTCs drink to in order to get energy to traverse death-roads to Nairobi.

 

 Parliament (Bunge) in session. Enemy of the people.

As if that is not enough, the hidden treasure that our CoE Covenant had foreseen happened to be a chimera (nonexistent thing) and now we have to beg white people, also known as Donors, in order to live. The Donors are not all that benevolent. They can’t give enough to quench our national thirst and greed. So they formed two chamas; World Granary (bank) and IMF (International Milk and Food), which lend our empty National Granary (Treasury) at a very unfair interest rate. But the problem lies in the fact that the privileged tribe steals before wanainchi may get a chance to suck from the withering breasts of Sirikal.  

Grandchildren of Ramogi, the jobs that CoE Covenant envisaged are available but there is national poverty of creativity and thought, on the part of privileged tribe (legislators) and other high stationed national seers( policy makers). As we speak, every student leaving mbarariany (university) is either a stealing conman or a robber. If the student happens to be female, you are more likely to find her ‘hawking’ along Chief Koinange’s street. The privileged tribe sits in a palace called bunge (parliament) where they perpetually quarrel about who should sit where except when they conspire to increase their loot from depleted National Granary. Walking a long the paths joining houses in Nairobi (CBD), you are more likely to be robbed than to stumble upon a good person. Let all our children learn fishing under stewardship of Indivijuol. It is good for character development. They should not be subjected to eternal damnation of soul forced upon young people by hustling life of the city. 

My friend and uncle Indivijuol, the CoE Covenant wants the government to repopulate Lake Victoria with all indigenous fish species through creating suitable sustainable aquatic environment around lake basin ecosystem for fish breeding. The government  is  yet to charge Lake Victoria Basin Commission which precise conservancy mandate which will not ignore protection of endangered fish species like Okoko, Fuani, Mumi, Kamomgo and others. But that will not be possible if industrial waste and toxic effluence get discharged in our fresh water lake. In fact, by the time something called Vision 2030 visually expires, Lake Victoria will be the most toxic water body in the universe. In toxicity sequence, Nairobi River has a permanent slot in second position.  Nairobi is the only city in the world without an incinerator. Industrial and municipal waste manaegemnt will forever be a pitfall. Even the presence of UNEP is not a mitigating factor. Water and sanitation is just a pigment of NCC imagination.

 (Except for professor, whom I pray won’t attend the baraza, no one will understand this jargon. I will be merely saying it to advertise my knowledge).

As you all know, Mama Justina Onyango was elated when Opuk the Tortoise offered to give Vice President Wiper fishing lessons should he fail to clinch presidency. That too is currently a pipe (straw) dream, after bunge allowed him some latitude to vie for not less than two posts this coming elections. On 20^th June, 2012, bunge breached our sacred Covenant and outrageously allowed any body who wants to be Ker (president) to vie for as many offices as possible. If by some good luck he loses, bunge allowed him more latitudes for nomination to the senate, bunge itself, or county assembly. He may still be nominated to all assemblies. As for the degree our Covenant strongly recommended, the enemy of the people that is bunge is already deleting. 

(By this time I would hope ‘Professor’ Josiah is busy with Mendelev’s periodic table, studing S and P Block elements, some with isotopic tendencies. The last thing I would want is to engage with Jossiah in a coalition-before-or-after debate.) 

God’s people and faithfuls of the CoE Covenant, I do recall Professor Josiah asserting that coalition before elections will be a thing of the past. It turns out that bunge had deleted that clause too from our inviolate Covenant. As young people littering the streets of Nairobi, we watched on plasma TV screens as Nick Legg (a Liberal Democrat) and David Cameron (a Conservative) formed coalition after elections and hoped that bunge would take cues. I can say categorically that the first and the last coalition after elections since the advent of Multiparty was initiated by Wiper, formerly ODM Kenya. There is no working coaltition between ODM and PNU: it is taking meat from hyena’s mouth business.

Lastly, my people, our area MP Eng. James Rege (who sits in the bunge) is a technology guru. He talks to you through Skype and video conferencing at the CDF office whenever he is as far as Nairobi and Washington DC. Kindly ask him to install one LCD screen at Aros Market and Oyawre Beach so that we may distinguish between those who vote in bunge to for wananchi’s good and those who vote with their stomachs.

My people we need to continue singing Bado Mapambano until our real enemy, the bunge, is not recycled come next elections.

Shem Sam