Ngugi: The prophetic voice whose warning has now come to pass

Let me apologise upfront for using a profanity in a family newspaper, but as Kenyans like to put it, wacha niseme initoke: Kenya is full of crap. Now, I feel better…

One of my friends likes to counsel that obscenity has no place in art. But in times of strife, no artist has the inclination, or the patience, to couch their message in beautiful artifice; they offer it raw. I am still raw with pain, because we have lost a dear friend, Mwalimu Ngugi wa Thiong’o, last week.  

I was on the road when I received the news from Wanjiku wa Ngugi, my sister from other mother. I wanted you to know before you read this online, she started. Baba has rested…

I have been immersed in thinking and reflecting about Ngugi’s life and work, and what they mean for us all. Overall, there has been a deep sense of gratitude that I was privileged to know him as long and deeply as I did.

At other times, I have been outraged over the shabby treatment that he received from his country of birth. Despite his long absence from Kenya, accounting for over 40 years, Ngugi still held a Kenyan passport. He died Kenyan, and he died for Kenya.

The latter statement is not metaphorical. Ngugi laid his life for this country, but as he wrote in his own work, Kenya has no ward for dead heroes. For his efforts in chronicling the triumphs and pain of our people, we detained him without trial.

And when he was released, he couldn’t find work to support himself, after being fired from the University of Nairobi during his year-long incarceration. Consequently, he was forced into exile, where his work was embraced and celebrated far and wide.

The fields of postcolonial, African literature and African studies are poorer without Ngugi. One could even say, those fields exist because Ngugi willed them into being. For these artistic and academic endeavours, he picked many accolades that affirmed and reaffirmed his contributions to world literature, for his teaching and activism for a more just world.

It is instructive that of the dozen-plus honorary doctorates that Ngugi received from academies around the world, from the US to UK, South Africa to New Zealand, only one was from Kenya—the KCA University, in 2016.

I couldn’t have captured this irony better than Kabando wa Kabando, the former MP for Mukurwe-ini, who said recently: “Concubines, boyfriends, sons and daughters, economic hitmen, surrogates, corrupt individuals are chronicled in the litany of State recognitions every public holiday,” he thundered.

I would say thieves and rapists and murderers and prostitutes and charlatans are the latest addition to this list. Some years back, Ngugi received a Head of State commendation, a desultory award for such outstanding achievements.

But rather than get upset at the snub, Ngugi’s work teaches us to look at the Kenya State with fresh eyes. We should rejoice that he was spared such a blemish, for those national honours have been desecrated beyond repair.

Should you think this is a case of sour grapes, you just need to read Devil on the Cross to realise all the dystopian elements that Ngugi fictionalised about are embodied in the Kenyan State today.

This is the novel that Ngugi wrote as Caitaani Mutharaba-ini, on toilet paper, at Kamiti Maximum Security Prison, the first modern novel in Gikuyu, and it documents thieves competing who among themselves who will steal the most from the people.

Undoubtedly, few of the nation’s political elite can escape the general perception of being conmen and women, as sleek as they come. And judging from the number of scandals that erupt every new day, it’s safe to say Kenya’s political elite are trying to outdo each other in their quest to steal from the public.