Deeply Concerned.

I am not done celebrating the thunderous win by the Jubilee coalition in the just concluded national elections that also somewhat propelled the little great nation of Kenya towards its Jubilee (50yrs) celebrations.

Although there were a lot of eccentric behaviours across the board, and that is expected, the lasting sentimental hangover still leave a bad taste in the mouth and obviously the only sure thing from that election is luckily the fact that Kenya left it in one piece.

The peace can not be said to be lasting though. The main jokers are still doing their best to out do each other months after the elections were concluded. The losers are still shouting they won even after it was proved through their way of choice, the Supreme Court that they had soundly lost.

The winners, troubled and disrupted by the persisting shouts in discord, disaccord or just CORD, still have a minute, even in their humungous task of taking the country from analogue to digital age, to check out the streets for the latest rumour.

You may want to argue here that it is important for a government of the people to keep the proverbial ear on the ground, but what if the data they collect always confuses them more? Coz so it seems.

Take the airport issues for instance. I am not qualified to run a village airport leave alone the biggest airport in the country (Kenya) but I do know that refusing someone in the calibre of one ex-PM Raila Odinga the luxurious VIP access would only bed political turmoil for a country with so few of that kind. Raila is still a Kenyan ‘rock star’ even if he looses election after election.

The least a government can do is at the least to have a smooth talk with the fellow on what is and not is.

But then if the choice is to go on all national media outlets and scream that he has even refused to return a number of government vehicles, how would that save as from embarrassment? How digital is that?

Am starting to realise that this digital government might end up disappointing me and the millions who voted it in if it keeps playing the game according, funny how that word CORD keeps sneaking in conversations, to the losers.  What I understand, I might be wrong, is that there are laid down procedures and all is harmonised in the new constitution.

There is a big conspicuous disparity between the Nyayo era and younger Kenyatta’s digital era, bear with me on the overuse of the word digital; it was the fellow’s hammer. Kenyatta’s dream is to actualise the modernisation of Kenya, the country and the nation! But his continued advice from the likes of former president Moi is worrying, especially when it comes to matters of peace.

One thing I never tire from reminding is that Kenya was never peaceful during Moi’s rule. Kenyans were forced to hold their peace. You do not have peace under dictatorial rule. Kenyans like the one ex-PM RAO made a name for themselves then because they had no desire to lay low. And as we remember, when they chose to say their piece they were herded down the Nyayo house basement and awarded permanent bodily blingblings.

If it was up to that history, Raila von Odinga should be held in heroic status. It’s only that his political path and his persistent lack of consistence throws him off the path of righteousness into a perpetual incompleteness way too often. Call it his endless love-hate relationship with the nation he purports to love.

What worries me is after the terrible political havoc created, pathetically so, at a funeral mass for school children where the president’s moment to make up with the some of the people who did not vote for him after he did a first one by actually giving a presidential order for the airlifting of those seriously injured to a better equipped hospital and promising to give financial aid to the families of the dead and the injured, you would have expected a heroic welcome for the son of Jomo. Of course that didn’t happen. Kenyans never disappoints.

But his actions did not pass unnoticed. If not by the concerned families and their county, the opposition saw it for what it was and did not waste time in hatching a plan to denying the president what was his. That he opted not to appear in person can be looked at two ways, it was either cowardice or gentlemanly. Cowardice because he dared not face his disparagers or gentlemanly because he saw the havoc coming and chose to avoid it out of respect.

Much was said after what happened and I thought it would end there. But something caught my eye, the president and his government were accused of taking Kenya back to the times of dictatorship. I don’t know where that came from and I still don’t. Needless to say, these were the days of the then president Daniel Arap Moi. Reading later that Kenyatta met Moi to discuss regional peace makes me wonder. We did leave KANU or didn’t we?

President Kibaki who is the immediate former president is in comparison better acquainted with the current state of affairs and should probably be a better adviser to the digital president at this time, but am yet to here that the two have met to discuss anything of national importance.

Mr Kenyatta needs to seriously look into matters through a digital, and by that I mean a modern, eye and stick his ear hard on the ground before he looses touch with the younger nation dependant on him for the formal transformation of the Kenyan state. It can not be easy to suddenly be the president of a country like Kenya but it would benefit him more by listening to Kibaki than Moi because the latter failed where the former succeeded.

He could tell him something like, “kamwana, wewe wachana na hao, hao ni bure! Wanaongea huko huko tu! Huko ni huko, lakini wako hapa hapa..kwani wataenda wapi?” especially in the case of one Diana Kilonzo also known as Kethi though we might need a real and legal document like an ID or a valid passport to confirm her real names. 

In the mean time am deeply concerned that lack of sincere advice might derail goodhearted actions.  

Njoro.