been perfected in the counties as is well
illustrated in the now infamous ‘a hundred
thousand shillings wheelbarrows’ that
were passed by a county assembly.
The sharing of bread attitude has a deeper
root in that it has informed Kenyans
on the theory that ‘it is our turn to eat’
syndrome. This has been the bane of
Kenyan national politics since it was
realized that politics was not public
service in Kenya but an assured root to
financial stability in a flash.
But despite the Kenyan politician being
the highest paid in the world and this
includes the county government officials,
who have no work; this has not made the
politician a man or woman of integrity
and has only increased his or her greed.
L ooting the national and county
governments has become the national
pastime and officials are eating the
national bread for breakfast, lunch and
dinner topping it up as desserts without
due regard as to the source of this
money and what their role in national
development is.
In Kenya we have perfected the art of
making sure that institutions do not work
and the root cause of this is the ‘It is
our turn to eat’ syndrome which is just a
polite way of saying ‘it is our turn to loot’
and amazingly Kenyans have no problem
with that as seen in the manner we glorify
the beneficiaries of the gravy train.
52 MAL23/18 ISSUE
How interesting that
decades later, bread
would still be the met-
aphor for how we con-
duct political busi-
ness. More interesting
is the fact that our na-
tional political leaders
are not much better
at sharing bread as
Ochieng’s incessant-
ly squabbling siblings
were.
Since politics is a game of numbers the wiry
politicians have realized that tribal blocs
are the easiest to target and manipulate.
So they have worn their tribal regalia and
created solid voting blocs by ensuring that
they brainwash their constituents to the
core.
Ochieng has insisted that Kenya is not
tribal but it is every five years during
elections because that is when the
unscrupulous politician, who has only one
intent of getting into parliament and join
the bread eating fraternity, starts to peddle
his concocted craft.
And since he or she has no agenda for
Kenya but his stomach and is both morally
and intellectually bankrupt with nothing
to offer to the country’s advancement, he
uses the wiles that they have perfected
which work with Kenyans every time.
The first casualty of this attitude has been
the political party. It is annoying to note
that the only enduring party in Kenya has
been KANU, that grand old party that we
spent sleepless nights trying to dismantle
with their slogan ‘Kanu Ni Baba Na
Mama’. So they start hate mongering and pointing
out that certain groups of people have
had an unfair advantage and behave as
though thy own Kenya and soon rumors
and tweets are flying around making the
target unhappy and primed to be a voting
machine.
Kenyans have failed to craft any lasting
party because parties have ceased to
be ideological entities and have sadly
morphed into vehicles that are used to get
political power and politicians have spun
the tribal card on the gullible citizens in
the mix to get traction. As the saying goes ‘nothing is more
annoying than something you don’t
understand’ and these master manipulators
know this and they play the role of the
educator and through a series of deceptive
messages and outright untruths are able to
whip up negative emotions.