Kenya leads America in quest to undo old order, or so they seem to think

I half-expected Prezzo Bill Ruto to fly off to Washington since Kenya is designated that fanciful title of “major non-Nato ally,” or something as nonsensical as that, but I remembered returned US Prezzo Donald Trump doesn’t consider Kenya and the entire continent seriously.

I won’t repeat the slander that Trump cast on our people, though I can gladly report that the writer David Maillu returned the favour  recently by unveiling a Trump monument in Makueni.

No, no, Maillu didn’t write porn for Trump, even though Trump used to deal with porn stars. In any case, even it’s such a long time since Mailu wrote After 4.30, his Trump monument was appropriately obscene.

Anyway, Prezzo Ruto did not fly off to Washington, I suspect partly because he would be anxious about that tagline that Gen-Z flood online when he flies.

“When he’s not lying, he’s flying,” an inventive summation of his alleged transgressions. When the nation is beset with challenges, he’d rather dodge them by a manufacturing lies, or travelling somewhere to escape the heat.

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This analogy simplifies a rather complex scenario: Quite the contrary, Prezzo Ruto would have a lot to offer Donald Trump, not least because their political mantras echo each other (Kenya Kwanza means Kenya First; ditto Trump’s America First).

And as we all know, both ascended to power by tapping into the disaffection of the underclass in their respective countries and their dalliance with the evangelicals. Media were chastised as 'fake' and both alleged to be political outsiders out to wreck old order, whether it was called “draining the swamp” or dismantling 'dynasty'.

That “old order” is what Prezzo Ruto purported to undo when he took charge two years ago. By the way, some folks occasionally pose: how many more years do we have before the polls? “I thought it’s two,” they groan. Well, who is keeping the count?

So, Prezzo Ruto has been busy dismantling the “old order” that he claims has been fanning corruption and hemorrhaging our taxes. Consequently, university funding, social and health insurance, housing and what-have-you have been piled as legitimate levies that Kenyans must pay to “save their country” from eternal “debt trap.”

I hear the tumbocrats are eating using a spade instead of a regular table spoon. I understand some aspire to be as rich as Elon Musk in the next two years or so.

It appears Musk heard this rumour because he’s working as hard to maintain the wealth gap, so his campaign to create government efficiency will propel his wealth into the stratosphere. So, Musk has been asking, reasonably, which country collects taxes from its citizens and sends it to the US, which apparently is what America has been doing for the rest of the world.

That’s the theory of it; the practice is that for every dollar 'donated' by Americans to splash billboards and plaques on cattle dips, reading: “From the American people,”—which is how they exercise soft power—75 per cent of the donation is repatriated to the US in admin and logistics costs.

The juggernaut that’s powering Africa’s development, actually, are our decent kith and kin who slave away day and night in menial jobs in the 'Yues' and remit back home a handful dollars every week. They are not criminals like Trump, who was convicted on 34 counts recently.

I understand those kinsmen are walking the American streets with hearts in the mouth, or to use a metaphor in more regular usage, clutching their intestines in their hands because they have been dislodged from their natural spot.

Judging from the Kenyan example, where the government is learning to eat humble pie and revert to old ways, as they did with university funding, Trump will soon reckon, to use another popular Kenyan phrase: atajua hajui.