Kiraitu rides bus to Nairobi as Kabogo charges into an uncertain 'digital' future

Folks, I’m sorry I broke my New Year resolution to steer clear of politics and politicians after only a few days, but I couldn’t resist the temptation of touching former Kiambu governor William Kabogo’s bald head with a razor-sharp pen.

Or marvel at the former Meru Governor Kiraitu Murungi’s overnight commute from Meru so that he was at the State House in Nairobi at sunrise—only hours after he had spoken about the perceived marginalisation of folks at Kiunyu village in Meru.

I can imagine Kiraitu chuckling, in that awkward manner that sees his mouth twist and twitch, his shoulders rise and fall as he laughs at his own joke. The last time I checked, Kiraitu’s political vehicle was a bus that crawled at an excruciatingly slow pace, which means he didn’t make it to Nairobi early enough, so he wasn’t interviewed for the job. He’s on the waiting list, I understand.

The interesting bit is that as Kiraitu was in the waiting room as was the Public Service Cabinet Secretary Justin Muturi, who was waiting to see the Big Man before he made his exit.

We’re all going bananas, aren’t we, as the nation hurtles towards the status of a banana republic, if the former Attorney General of the Republic of Kenya, the custodian of law, could have his son plucked from the streets of the city, and reappear just as magically—and no has any explanation to offer.

This week, as Muturi rose to the parapet, some cheap shots were aimed at him: why was he wailing six months late, some loud mouths posed, and I thought the more pertinent question was whether he was fired from his position as AG, which has security of tenure, or if he relinquished the seat on his own volition.

I guess that’s not important any more, not just because of the passage of time, but because we have more interesting things to ponder, such as former Kiambu governor William Kabogo return to the limelight and he’s doing it in style!

Where I come from, Kabogo means a diminutive buffalo, which is rather appropriate for a man who aspires to lead the nation’s leap into the New Information age. The convergence of egalitarianism in the hunter-gatherer economy, evocative of buffalo of the wilds, and the nation’s leap into the future that Kabogo is supposed to herald, is held back by a dark past that continues to imprison Kabogo.

Was he a drug dealer? Was he involved in the murder of the departed university student, Mercy Keino? Jesus son of Mary, am I the only stranger in Jerusalem? Why was this balding, middle aged man with such heavy baggage burdening our future by recalling his dark past?

Even by our own flattering measure, where public screenings often feature ignoramuses who cannot pronounce the names of schools they purportedly attended, mainly because they hadn’t read the details from the River Road printer, this was a new high.

Since integrity thresholds oscillate around who was cleared of capital offences and drug dealing and who was not, the wisdom of my friend Bonnie Mwangi becomes painfully true. Bonnie says while most countries in the world have the mafia, in Kenya, the mafia have a country.

One could flesh out that metaphor and draw a similar conclusion as did former Chief Justice Willy Mutunga. He called it “majambazi” system. That means gangster system, which is why youngsters will be disappeared (and reappeared), and no one will have the gall to explain why they are being detained without trial, and for how long Kenyans will continue to live in fear.