Kipchumba Murkomen was not yet born in 1977, when the Jomo Kenyatta regime detained Ngugi Wa Thiong’o. He had dramatised his play titled ‘Ngahika Ndeenda’. And CS Murkomen was less than three years old when, in 1982, the Kanu government banned the performance of Muntu, by Joe de Graft.  

President William Ruto was certainly around in 1977, an 11-year old stripling, in primary school, somewhere in his village. And although the government had recently jailed his MP, the charismatic Chelagat Mutai, over trumped up charges of “incitement,” he probably could not join the dots.

Given the philistine monologues that he often engages the country with, it is possible that the President is still unaware of the two plays, and their import. Ngahika Ndeenda, co-authored with Ngugi wa Mirii, was considered a controversial, even radical, piece of art. It was later translated into English as ‘I Will Marry When I want’. A Kiswahili version titled ‘Nitaolewa Nikipenda’ also exists. Now this play is an artistic rendition of the social scene in post-colonial Kenya. It is a man-eat-man society, in which greed rules the nation.