Okay so I “plagiarized”; make that paraphrased a line from Digital Underground’s song “Same Song” but the relevance of its hook given President Uhuru Kenyatta’s 2016 State of the Nation (SOTN) address is spot on.
In the 1991 hit, Shock-G nee Gregory Jacobs offers that life as a rapper — with the “jennies” or ladies — is the same all over the world. Shock-G, along with the late Tupac Shakur, goes on to sing that they’ve “Been all around the world” and nothing has changed i.e. “same song” regarding life on the road as a successful rap group.
Lost in the non-partisan self-flagellation over the childish and disruptive conduct of some elected officials during President Kenyatta’s address was a SOTN speech which may as well have been recycled from SOTNs of 2014 and 2015.
To be perfectly clear and to temper the ethnic vitriol and outright lies (libelous) directed at me, the conduct of the five members of the opposition was unacceptable and only enhanced the narrative that they hail “from a community of ‘stone-throwers’” or to quote a tweet by columnist and consultant Ngunjiri Wambugu; one that portends a dark and slippery slope of ethnic stereotyping:
“These Luo MPs! Shaking my head” — instead of “These 5 MPs!….”
When news of the disruption in parliament first broke, I wrote that it is one thing to express displeasure when one disagrees with a comment AFTER the comment is made just as it is to cheer a comment AFTER it — comment — is made. Either behavior is commonplace during the State of the Union (SOTU) here in the US as it is in the British Parliament — two institutions whose structure Kenya’s is modeled after — at least in part.
I then went on to write that it is an entirely different thing to disrupt or deny anyone the right to make the remark; that the MPs were wrong to disrupt the president’s SOTN address — plain and simple.
Having called out the offensive behavior of the five legislatures, let me now point out the elephant in the room:
– That regarding the existential threat that corruption and theft of public funds has become during Mr. Uhuru Kenyatta’s presidency, there was nothing new in the 7,267-worded sermonizing that voters did not hear in 2015 and 2014 or to quote Shock-G, it was the “same song”.
– To wit, a consistent omission from this and other flowery, lofty and lengthy presidential bloviations are specific AND immediate presidential actions, well within the purview of his office, against those implicated in corruption and other economic crimes. This sense of urgency is fashioned by the dangerous reality that corruption has reached dizzying and untenable heights during the last 3 years; think the saying “desperate times call for desperate measures”.
A former high school mate pointed out that President Kenyatta “gets a high five for his coolness” in the face of vocal and disrespectful protestation; a point I agree with — to some extent. My friend, who shall remain unnamed, went on to write that “what the opposition did (during the SOTN speech)…lack(ed) finesse.” Gerald (not his name) also professed doubt whether “finesse and style in the delivery of their message” was a major consideration for the unruly parliamentarians. The former Old Cambrian alum argued, albeit tangentially, that the disruption in “bunge” was fashioned by the patently selective and erratic execution of the president’s “war on corruption and other ‘monstrous’ economic crimes”.
Simply put, President Kenyatta has demonstrated utter impotence confronting corruption inside HIS very office and government; a fact fully evidenced by his handling of the saga involving his appointee Anne Waiguru. The litany of statistics cataloguing Jubilee’s “success” in the fight (against corruption) are immediately rubbished by the president’s appointment and re-appointment of individuals, some in their seventies, to the very institutions whose resources and funds they are accused of plundering and mismanaging:
So much for the campaign promise to create “employment opportunities for the youth” and “hold those implicated in ‘monstrous economic crimes’ accountable”!
The puerile behavior of the few members of the opposition is also tame compared to the prescription put forth by Daily Nation’s David Ndii in his piece “Kenya is a cruel marriage, it’s time we talk divorce”.
In social phenomena it often takes varying levels of disruption to jolt society into action against an untenable status quo and God knows Kenya needs to be jolted out of its apathy towards corruption given the presidential acquiescence (tacit) on said subject, through his repeated dithering.
TheTwoNinetyOneTracker 