Praise song for the dead, who clarify our purpose and meaning in this life
Peter Kimani
By
Peter Kimani
| Oct 24, 2025
I am not persuaded, even for a moment, of the widely-held notion that Prezzo Bill Ruto cynically assented to the new draconian Bills, including one that prohibits scribes from using the word kubaf to describe such acts of duplicity, to exploit Kenyans’ collective grief.
I mean, it would be highly hypocritical of him to do that while praising the departed opposition doyen Raila Odinga aka Baba as the embodiment of our freedom. I simply don’t buy that. For it would mean Prezzo saw Baba’s death as a “good day” to bury “bad news.
Rather, I am persuaded that Prezzo had a different motivation for acting as he did: he just wanted to rid his desk of paperwork, seeing that it was going to be a very long weekend. After all, Monday had been designated a public holiday, and he extended the weekend by declaring Friday another public holiday.
So, I don’t think he was being hypocritical; he just wanted to get things out of the way. By the way, let me clarify that hypocrisy, or the idea of it, has Biblical roots, when Jesus castigated Pharisees and scribes for expressing scepticism and demanding proof of things not seen.
There is little that we haven’t seen from Kenyans collectively, and politicians specifically, to forestall any prospects of Baba from ever leading this country. But that’s not my problem. The man lived a political life, he died a political death—with his elder brother Oburu Oginga letting us in on the fact that his medical tab was picked up by the government, as though Baba were a pauper—so he expectedly received a political funeral.
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There is no denying that if only a fraction of the security razzmatazz displayed at his casket had been deployed to protect him when he was alive, Baba would have lived happily ever after. As Oburu morbidly remarked, the man had been teargassed enough during his lifetime; there was no reason to subject him to the same in death. But they did.
Which is why the only man who provided refreshing honesty is former Westlands MP Fred Gumo aka Kaa Ngumu. When he saw the torrent of tears among politicians, Gumo remarked that those chaps were not mourning Baba, but their own political careers that were hinged on their proximity to him. Now that he was gone, their political future was uncertain.
That’s too much power vested in one individual, but it speaks to a larger problem which is bound to unravel in the fullness of time. Baba said he had been invited to the government to help steer the State because it was on the verge of collapse; now that he’s gone, it’ll be interesting to see if his party remains in government.
Which is why the valourising of the man will become national obsession because, imbued with our collective guilt of his neglect, few will wish to contradict whatever will be projected as his dying wish. Yet something of value will be lost in transition: why should we care about the man in death if we never cared for him while he was alive?
Then comes the Mashujaa Day, on October 20, and the government unveiled a list of national heroes, many of whom were awarded posthumously. Baba was awarded the highest civilian honour, while two of my friends, Mwalimu Ngugi wa Thiong’o and publisher Henry Chakava were declared “national heroes.”
Ngugi died early this year at 86; Chakava died last March at 77. They did not die young, and their accomplishments were recognised early. In the case of Ngugi, since his undergraduate days at Makerere, some 60 years earlier. So, why did his country of birth wait until he was gone to acknowledge his contribution in the making of modern Kenya?
I will not use those words I have a penchant for, now that those draconian Bills have been signed into law. But ours is such a strange land, we find more value for people when they are dead, than when they are living.