Mutahi Kagwe |Photo courtesy|
As the crescendo hits this Christmas, I am compelled to write this letter to the GEMA nation, as a genuflection of where we are at in relation to our daily affairs and those of the nation. Christmas, ordinarily, and in my own experience over the years, is a season of joyous occasion, festivities and traditions, of love, penitence, giving, forgiveness, and a time to reason together in this spirit as family, friends, colleagues, neighbors and believers.
This year is different. My people from and of the mountain, you are angry, sullen, emotive, hyper-sensitive, garrulous and hard-to-please. What has happened to you, and us as a civilized society?
I know that times and seasons change. And that there is a time for everything, per the Psalmist.
I humbly acknowledge that it has been a tough year for all of us, the world over. We are no exception to the rule. So, stop beating yourself so hard. The effects of global economic contraction post-Covid19 have been manifested this year more than ever, but trust me, the worst is over. Cheer up, for this is the season to not only reflect on the what-would-have-been in 2024, but to also look forward to a better, more prosperous and fulfilling year ahead.
We have turned the corner and the worst is behind us. Despite the almost two-year-old war in Ukraine impacting global grain prices, the impact of higher global oil and commodity prices spiked by the war in Gaza and instability in the Middle East, the extreme weather events, insecurities wrought by climate-change and of extremist groups, we are still here, and the irrepressible democracy of democracy continues. For we are a democracy, by choice.
We are also a nation-state, a beautiful constellation made up of the different communities, talents, perspectives, cultures, languages and aspirations. Daima Mkenya. Yes, we are one nation and one people, bound together by more than the flag, the national anthem, the new constitution and geographic location, yet we, the people of murima, refuse to see the forest for the trees. We have a shared history, and culture, for our diversity and shared destiny is our irrevocable bond. Why do we refuse to acknowledge this, embrace our fellow Kenyans, and celebrate each one of us and our achievements?
Which brings me to the crux of the matter. The unresolved and unmitigated anger that we continue to exhibit against anything and everything national leadership and government. It baffles me. How and why did we get here, yet it seems like only yesterday when, totally unprovoked, and despite evidence to the contrary, we labeled our former President Kenyatta and his administration a failure, for having failed to ‘protect our interests’. Which interests may I ask now, when he more than delivered on his national mandate? What did Kamwana not do for you?
We vilified, denigrated, maligned and slandered him as a person, his name and that of his defenseless family, to no end, in the heat of the 2022 elections, before, and thereafter. We didn’t stop there. Even after he handed over power peacefully to our favored candidate, President William Ruto and Kenyatta quietly retired and retreated to mind his own business, the uncivil louts that we have become. On a daily basis, in public platforms and in private conversations, we lampooned him and spurn all manner of yarns around how bad he was, till it became cliché to. We never raised a finger to stop this grand larceny. Anything could go! It was karma, some of us said. After all, he deserved what we just served him, never mind the fact that we were the judge, jury and executioner.
Despite priding ourselves in entrepreneurship and swearing by the sanctity of protecting by all means necessary, private property, we were not done yet. We were blood thirty ogres.
The genie had been unleashed. One sunny morning in March this year, we watched in awe as some of us raided his properties, ransacked, pillaged, burnt, stole and made off with his goats, all at the instigation of some individuals who now find it fit to circle their wagons around us with their siege mentality saying that we are being targeted? By whom? How convenient! Talk of the hunter becoming the hunted.
Barely a month ago, at a solemn consecration of a Bishop in Embu, we serenaded the very Kenyatta that we told two years ago that we do not eat roads, he can roll them up and take them with him to Ichaweri at the end of his term (but we are still complaining that this administration has not completed his flagship projects, including the Mau-mau Road). Kenyatta’s return to public life was met with glee and ululations, and we hailed him as Muthamaki and the undisputed Kingpin of the mountain. A fortnight later, we have gone back to our old bad habits. Default settings it is! We are burlesque about him, Uhuru Kenyatta, the fourth president of the republic of Kenya, for having the audacity to consult the fifth president, Dr. William Ruto, on matters of national interest, behind our backs.
Traitors! Homeguards! Dynasties! Privileged trust fund kids. These and other choice epithets we throw at Kenyatta, Kagwe, Kinyanjui, Peter Kenneth and Kaba Kabogo from the rooftops, for all sundry to hear. But pray tell, aren’t these still our finest sons! What is wrong with these gentlemen of finesse and good standing being called by this administration to fix the same challenges that we have been complaining about? Some of us have been strident that they should not pick up the gauntlet and should, in our own twisted illogical way of thinking, stay out, for all manner of real and imagined reasons, and we then continue suffering the ignominies that we daily go on about?
Are we saying that Kagwe in the tea, coffee, dairy, high-value nuts, avocado and other food crops sector will fail even before he has started? Ndiritu Mureithi will not bring sanity and humanness to the aggressive tax collection scheme by the KRA; that Kaba Kabogo will tank the booming in the ICT and digital economy sector? that Lee Kinyanjui should not step up and try to resolve our pain points in the SMEs, Trade and Investments?
Are we saying, as a people that one man’s personal issues with his boss has snowballed into a communal crisis? Barely five month ago, RiggyG was one of the most reviled personalities in central Kenya, accused of insubordination of his boss, sabotaging other elected leaders, demanding for personal adulation from all and sundry, and of having disinherited his late brother’s family of their inheritance. History is unforgiving, my good people. In 1966, Oginga Odinga was fired and Kenyatta still continued flashing defrocked, and our women still continued to don their colourful head gear on Sunday and attending their Women’s Guild meetings.
In 1988 Emilio Mwai Kibaki was fired, but our cattle still went to the cattle dip. In 1989, after Prof. Njuguna Karanja was fired, we still delivered our coffee to the factories. After the December 1997 elections, Moi stayed for 14 months without a VP. We still took our kids to school and repaid our loans before George Kinuthia Muthengi Saitoti was reappointed. Why is this an existential communal crisis now?
What is wrong with us? What do we want? What is there to be glorified about being in the opposition and by being an ill-advised opposition vanguard to settle personal political scores? When did we become such marionettes and putty in the hands of propagandists, that we have lost all sense of common decorum and decency? Let us ponder these questions this Christmas and resolve to return to rationality in the new year. Happy Holidays!
The writer, Mutahi Kagwe is a former Health Cabinet Secretary and CS nominee for Agriculture
