Watching Kenya

Watching Kenya

Before you abducted our tourists

We knew not war. We were peace priests

We went about our business undisturbed

We never looked over our shoulders perturbed

Our businesses boomed hotels full

We went to church worshipped prayerful

We boarded matatus not being doubtful

No one frisked us when we were faithful

Then our president responded to the provocation

Our soldiers went on land, sea and air incursion

Inside Somalia smoking out Al Shabaab with determination

City by city our gallant soldiers captured with retaliation

The retaliation has been devastating

Bloodshed, injury and perpetual fearing

We have spent millions of shilling trying

To counter Al Shabaab revenge almost with everything

We’ve made mistakes on the way

Giving a quick fix when the breaches give way

To capital flight tourists flying away

And we remain jobless idling away

The Wanjiku does not care whether

It’s choices and consequences rather

She wants a permanent closure from further

Death and destruction. She does not want it to go farther

Even if it means installing CCTV cameras

Or keeping our troops longer in the diasporas

May be a dialogue in multiple foras

Any one listening? We are tired of this morass!

The writer is a final year student of Bachelors of Arts Degree in Communication and Media at Chuka University and an intern at KNA Kitui Bureau. He blogs at musyokangui.blogspot.com

Email your thoughts to musyokangui02@gmail.com

The Church at Crossroads

The Church is entangled in the intricate web of politics and tribalism. This comes at a dire circumstance when the State of the Nation needs peace and development. Will the centre hold? This is a story of the place of Church in modern times and its role in the ever changing dynamics of the world.  Caveat: It is a scathing criticism and unapologetic as it may be. The writer puts the truth before anything. After all, it is mirroring the reality. Nothing personal.

CAST

Mark: Churchgoer

Milly: Churchgoer

Jane: Pastor Bill’s Daughter

Chris: Jane’s fiancé

Pastor Bill: Head of Upward Church.

Police Inspector General

TV Presenter

Congregation

PRODUCTION TEAM

Scripter: Musyoka Ngui

Producer/Director: Lawrence Kitema

Scene One

(Upward Church. Faithfuls are streaming in for Sunday Service.  They are chatting as they enter the Church)

Mark: Praise Jesus!

Milly: Amen!

Mark: Did you hear about Mama Sarah’s daughter wedding?

Milly: No, Tell me about it. I can as well start ordering for wedding clothes.

Mark: She is marrying from the lake.

Milly: What! I thought us people from the mountain should marry from the mountain. Ni bwana alikosa ama walitoana na huyo wapi?

Mark: He is her college colleague. They used to study together at the big city, Nairobi.

Milly: (Shaking her head) Wasichana wa siku hizi. Can they be tamed?  Let them not bring us kisirani ya ziwa na kurusha mawe. We want mundu wa Nyumba. Sisi kwa sisi, wakae na vitu zao.

Mark: But sis the Bible says you love your neighbour…..

Milly: Yeah but it is the pastor’s daughter, our pastor’s daughter. It can’t happen

Scene Two

(Pastor Bill enters the church. The congregation is in a prayerful mood. It is time to usher in the sermon speaker)

Pastor Bill: Every eye shut and mouth closed shall we pray. Lord Jesus we come before you this beautiful day. We thank you for my daughter’s wedding. We give their wedding plans in your hands. May you fulfil them. In Jesus name….

Milly: No no! Pastor. You are forgetting something. The Holy Spirit just spoke to me at this very moment telling me the marriage is doomed. Pray for repentance and giving so that God may bless the couple.

Pastor Bill: Ribashagarabardfigbra! Shindwe! Pepo ya ukabila ondoka. I am commanding you to go. Leave, flee. Pack. Ondoka!

Mark :( In meditation). Oh God may you help us. I know Jane loves Chris but the mere fact that they come from opposing political factions their parents will not allow them to marry. Tribalism is the curse they will have to live with.

(The rest of the congregation join in prayer. The prayers degenerate to shouting matches before noise takes over.)

Scene Three

(In Nairobi’s Uhuru Park. Jane and Chris are strolling around the park holding hands. They are in love)

Chris: Babe do you love me?

Jane: (Blushes): Yeah but father will not allow our marriage.

Chris: Why? I thought being a man of the cloth he would pronounce peace and blessing in our lives.

Jane: You don’t know dad. He objected to this. We are just wasting time. I told the church elders to advise him but some of them, am afraid, support him.

Chris: So what is the issue? Does it require referendum or dialogue?

Jane: None. We are adults and they want to micromanage our private little life. Hell no. Kama ni laana na iwe.

Chris: I will never let you go.

Jane: I will go where you go. So don’t you ever leave me. Even if it is eloping we are going to do it. Us two. Me and you. We are the ones who know how special the bond we share is.

Chris: What if they let curse befall us? Will our love work without the goodwill of our parents?

Jane: It is for us to make it work by working on it.

Chris: (Kissing her): They say the forbidden fruit tastes sweetest. (Laughs)

Jane: (Hugs him): They also say banned rallies are most attended. See here we are in the historic Sabasaba ground. Uhuru Park. Shouldn’t it embody freedom? Freedom to choose who one wants to hang out with, marry and love? Am afraid dad is behaving like police. He’s raising alarm on seeing unarmed gathering of lovers.

Chris: This is really symbolic; let’s go before police or kanjo come for us for gathering without licence.

Jane: Siku hizi ata serikali inadeploy NYS. Those kids who wore GK shorts during the Moi era to control crowds.

(Chris and Jane leave Uhuru Park. The next day they attend a church service at Pastor Bill’s church.)

Pastor Bill: Today I want us to depart from the normal way of doing our things here. Everyone knows that tomorrow I will hold a press conference to outline the position of the clergy on State of the Nation.

Jane: Yes dad.  You need to prepare what you will say on TV. We can help you draft the statement you will read as the Chairman of the Clergy.

Milly: I think we can start. Time is running out.

Mark: I suggest you drop the idea of tribalism. Your daughter will miss this handsome young man here for just belonging to the wrong tribe. Who knows, he may be even be killed for loving her. God forbid.

Chris: I am willing to lay my life for the sake of the love I have for pastor’s daughter, Jane.

Pastor Bill: The pre-wedding between my daughter and her fiancé is cancelled until after security is restored in our country. I cannot risk mortgaging my daughter to people I do not trust. I love her more than this boy is claiming.

Jane: He is not a boy. Chris is a man. A real gentleman. I’ve resolved to go with him mpende msipende.

Pastor Bill: Shhhh! Do not raise your voice before the elders and more so your father. I can curse you to the nth generation. Keep quiet and wait my decision and it is final.

Milly:  I support Baba Jane.

(The entire church erupts into chaos. Rival campus for pastor and the other supporting his daughter. They want to shed blood on the pulpit.

That night during prime time news the country watches the depressing news.)

TV Presenter: Hello viewers, we are sad to report that a scuffle ensued this morning at a Sunday service at Upward Church when the congregation went head to head with the pastor’s camp on national security matters. Apparently, the pastor’s daughter, Jane, had planned to marry a young man called Chris who comes from a rival tribal and political outfit. We further regret to announce that the couple tried to elope in order to marry secretly at Zanzibar Island but they have since gone missing. Police have mounted investigation into the matter.

(Two days later)

Police Inspector General: Hello distinguished Kenyans. Our comrades have completed the investigation into the church saga. Sadly, the couple Jane and Chris died in a boat accident that capsized in Indian Ocean if the DNA samples we collected are anything to go by. We urge the public to maintain peace. Our condolences to the affected families. Bye. No questions from the media please.

SEQUEL:

While receiving blood from the donor, does the doctor ask you which tribe you belong to? Do you refuse to take it because it is from another ethnic community or because it aint your blood group? Think and stop being stupid, petty even. Each of us, regardless of race, creed, religion, region, culture and tongue bleed when we get cut. Beneath the skin we are all the same. The rest is superficial. Including your beauty and ugliness. Tafakari babu.

Desperate dry days

Desperate dry days

T

here is nothing wrong with questioning people in authority and holding them to account. In fact, they are the ones who do not understand our business. We cannot mind our own business for they are our business. Put differently, their business is ours.

BY MUSYOKA NGUI

A close shave. A near commotion. Foiled accident. These encounters do not exactly make news. They just attempt to. Journalists feel like nudging the actors. Stirring up the action. Because they want news badly. The editor is on their neck. The competitor is breaking the story and you have no clue?

I was in court recently and the place was undergoing construction. A few steps from the courtroom, I tripped and almost fell on a trench. My pressed clothes got dirty and as I struggled to be on my feet, a fellow journalist said: “You should have fallen on the trench real bad so that we get news. The court proceedings have not started and the bureau is demanding today’s submissions.”

To her, I was the fodder for which she will be saved during the dry day. I refused to be news. Bad news sell more than good news. So why should I be the poster child for accidents?

That and many other occurrences prompted me to think of journalists as sadists. They would rather watch a fight than intervene because if they do, then they will kill the news they are looking for.

To avoid being dry, you should be having ample contacts on your beck and call. From regular calendar events like school opening, closing and graduations to constant calls to the OCPDs, insiders of large corporations as well as street savvy people such as security guards, hawkers and touts.

Another place that may save you the drought is the morgue. Your archives will provide crucial leads to a story that needs to be followed up, a complaint that needs to be balanced by interviewing the other voice and rich variety of topics to choose from.

Ever wondered why some journalists and media houses are always plugged in? Why they are always on the know? One unspoken secret about them is how they treat their clients. If you are not hospitable people will give you a wide berth. People want to hang out with others who will appreciate them, encourage them and not those who want to put them down. If you are perennially subjective against a news source, the source will punish you by declining to grant you an interview because the last time you insinuated and played what if card.

There is nothing wrong with questioning people in authority and holding them to account. In fact, they are the ones who do not understand our business. We cannot mind our own business for they are our business. Put differently, their business is ours.

The writer is a final year student of Bachelors of Arts Degree in Communication and Media at Chuka University and an intern at KNA Kitui Bureau. He blogs at musyokangui.blogspot.com

Email your thoughts to musyokangui02@gmail.com

Achebe convinced me that the African problem lies in its leadership or lack of it

Achebe convinced me that the African problem lies in its leadership or lack of it

“I

 believe quite strongly that if Nigeria is to avoid catastrophes of possibly greater dimensions that we have been through since Independence we must take a hard look and unsentimental look at the crucial question of leadership and political power.” 

The African continent has languished in perennial problems since its States got Independence. Africans thought that by driving out the Whites they will find solutions to their issues from their own African leaders they would elect.

I read Chinua Achebe’s booklet The Trouble With Nigeria nodding to every page I opened. The book is a real depiction of the problems that his native country Nigeria suffers. The story is much the same as Kenya’s and indeed most of what Achebe calls Black Africa. He says the trouble with Nigeria boiled down to one word: leadership or lack of it. “The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership.”  He continues, “The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which are the hallmarks of true leadership.”

Achebe’s country languished in crises but he was hopeful that it would overcome. Written in 1983, the book is still relevant today as it highlights the poor characteristics of a typical African leader in an honest way. Achebe indicts African leaders as self seeking, arrogant, proud, living in denial, corrupt, tribal (in his words they are clannish), unpatriotic, insensitive to the needs of the masses and incompetent to lead their countries.

As I read through the 63 page booklet, I could not help but sympathize with my country Kenya because I thought Achebe had it in mind. He accuses the citizens, especially the educated elite of being apathetic. The young and intellectuals are out of touch with the political class and do not hold them accountable. He proposes that getting an education is supposed to make one critical of their environment and develop a questioning attitude towards the easy promises uttered by the politicians.

I remembered how the Kenya’s middle class took to the social media to discredit some presidential candidates and root for others who they thought had development agenda. The middle class failed to turn up on the Election Day-as if the polling was being done on Facebook and Tweeter. The result? They let the candidates they did not support win by not voting for those they preferred. Someone said that bad leaders are elected by good people who do nothing about the situation. This type of accomplice which the Kenyan middle class partnered with the usual political suspects still haunts them and they have themselves to blame. Fortunately, they have the next elections in 2017 to right their wrongs.

“I believe quite strongly that if Nigeria is to avoid catastrophes of possibly greater dimensions that we have been through since Independence we must take a hard look and unsentimental look at the crucial question of leadership and political power.”  He then proceeds to give the Nigerians hope by saying: “I do not think that bad as it is our condition is totally bereft of hope or that our citizens are too dense to appreciate the explosive potentialities of the self centered politics we practice.”

Achebe is right to blame the political class for running down the rich African countries that they are entrusted with the citizens to lead. He challenges the citizens to rise up and hold their leaders to account. Achebe does not leave us in dilemma of the leadership examples he thinks should be emulated. He cites the example of Aminu Kano and Mahatma Gandhi as some of the icons we should emulate. He goes ahead to condemn past Nigerian rulers like Chief Obafemi Awolowo, General Olusengun Obasanjo, and Dr.Nnamdi Azikiwe for incompetence.  To Azikiwe he says mediocrity is his bane for he “has never shown an excessive desire to surround himself with talent”.

The above allegation is particularly serious given in our African countries the leaders make appointments on tribal basis and not merit. He challenges the readers to show him one important and strategic post that is held by the best Nigerian talent the country has got. Again, Achebe does not spare African leaders for abetting corruption and/ or partaking of it. He gets astonished by President Shehu Shagari admission that there is corruption but it has not reached alarming levels. African leaders are yet to show commitment in slaying the dragon that is corruption.

So what does Achebe think is the answer to bad leadership that has been the hallmark of Independent Black Africa? I think he wants the leaders to be transformational and change the dire situations of their people. He says Nigeria cannot be the same again because Aminu Kano lived there. The same can be said that India cannot be the same because Gandhi lived there.