MATATU CRAZE!!

       Matatus, matatus, you can’t stand them but yet again it’s impossible to leave without them. Visit most areas and you’re bound to see one suited in different sizes and varieties. They’re driven by half humans or maybe half amazing creatures whose habits are simply alien. They make you elated when they maneuver through traffic and the next second they’re on your case once you refuse to give sixty bob. This is quite ironic since they had charged you forty bob or even thirty bob just to make you board their matatu. We all know they’re wolves in sheep’s clothing but we always fall for their planks. You make a fuss out of it but you always end up paying up. The eyes befalling you make it even more embarrassing as everyone pretends to be minding their own business or even horrified by your stinginess or is it uncouth behavior. If they possessed so much money why are they not driving their own cars? Anyway that’s a story for another day.

      Imagine yourself coming out of a Research Communication class on a Monday evening bored to the core and yet to figure out a researchable topic. Oblivious to the circumstances around and getting home as your only agenda, you board a bus. This is mostly those City shuttles that resemble small trains and you seat someplace at the back. You’re contemplating on a topic until this tall and flamboyant girl enters the bus. You know, the ones that make the hair at the back of your neck stand up. She catches your attention with her exposed beautiful legs, exaggerated make up and long hair which is probably charlatan and you wish she’d sit next to you. In the back of your mind you know it has never happened and it’ll probably never will but you still have hope. She looks at her smart phone which most of the time is stitched on her hand and then gives you these disgusting look once she catches you staring. You can’t blame a guy for not having a face for TV now can you? It’s another disappointment but when you’re almost over it, this old man enters the bus, searches for a spot and automatically identifies the one next to you. It’s like magic how you and these kinds of folk always click and you’re stuck with him all the way to Kinoo.

     It doesn’t surprise you when he can’t even wait for the bus to leave the terminus before he starts assigning you duties. I enjoy being of assistance but as they say, too much of anything is poisonous. He starts by making you read phone numbers on his phone since apparently he can’t read at night. This is then followed by you turning into a Public relations officer for Brookside Milk Company since you have to explain that the yoghurt he’s carrying is not licking but it’s the condensed water as a result of refrigeration. Worse of all, you have to listen to how he has worked for 27 years with Kenya airways and how it’s impossible for him to be sucked. I try to intervene that maybe it’s probably retirement but the liquor odor from his mouth stops me. He finally alights and thanks you for the assistance even going ahead to wish you a safe trip. That leaves you thinking that maybe you were a bit unfair. As you’re contemplating that, you realize your stage is getting near and move two spots ahead just to meet your princess. You compose yourself and sit next to her. Fortunately or unfortunately she asks for the time and being the gentleman you are, check your watch and give it. Your heart skips a bit but before you could initiate a conversation, she puts her earphones back on totally ignoring your presence but these doesn’t put you off at all. What spoils your moment however is when you try to alight the bus like a conductor; you know, before the bus has come to a halt. It turns tragic when you miss a step and roll over hitting the ground with such a bang leaving the feet over your ahead. You pick yourself up very fast and try to act as if nothing happened but your princess takes none of it. She’s watching from the window laughing her heart out but being the man you’re, ignoring seems to be the only cure convincing yourself that she liked you and that was the reason why she noticed your little acrobat showcase.

Lessons for Kalonzo

RECENT POLITICAL INTRIGUES PROVIDE VITAL LESSONS FOR KALONZO


Vice-president, Kalonzo Musyoka, is the latest victim of political machinations. Recent attempts by his political comrades to edge him out of the much-hyped G7 alliance is a clear illustration that,indeed, politics is a dirty game. In fact, as one pundit aptly put it, there are no permanent friends or enemies in politics; only permanent interests!

The G7 alliance, whose main agenda is to lock prime minister, Raila Odinga from acceding to the presidency come next general elections, decided to use the same tactics to one of their own. Vice-president, Kalonzo Musyoka, was accused of allowing members of his Wiper Democratic Party (WDP) to make utterances that allegedly rubbed his fellow G7 alliance members the wrong way. This, according to William Ruto, deputy-prime minister, Uhuru Kenyatta, and company, called for punitive actions to be taken; and fast.

This was Kalonzo's worst nightmare. It is alleged that, it took the intervention of his boss H.E the president Mwai Kibaki, to bring the alliance back together. Kalonzo saw it necessary to seek his boss' assistance lest he finds himself in political oblivion. But even after they mended their differences and agreed to work together, the harm had already been done. However, several lessons can be drawn from the vice-presidents' latest predicament. First, you can not impose your friendship on uninterested fellows. Unwanted friendship is just what it is-unwanted friendship-and it is usually rejected or treated with contempt.

 Kalonzo Musyoka has on various occasions failed to read the 'writings on the wall' and therefore failed to save himself from unnecessary embarrassment. For example, how many times has he tried to shake hands with his Ukambani political foe and water minister, Charity Ngilu, in vain? Even when it is 'not business as usual' with his political colleagues, Kalonzo almost always fails to acknowledge that fact or ignores it altogether.

Therefore, when he saw how his fellow G7 alliance members loosing slip on how or when to evict him,  Kalonzo should have moved fast to act accordingly. Failure to do so would mean that he was a political opportunist who was only interested in ' reaping where he never sow'. Am sure he saw that coming.

The second lesson is that there is no such thing as ethical politics in Kenya. Backstabbing is an age-old political tradition that has punctuated the Kenyan post independent political landscape. Needless to say that the political uncertainty that Kenya faces is a result of disquiet among the key players in the political arena. To understand this assertion better, one needs to recall the countless memorandum of understandings (MoU) between politicians that have been dishonored in the past. One example of such a pact is that which was singed between the current president, Mwai Kibaki and prime minister, Raila Odinga, back in 2002.

The last fundamental issue is the expectations that Kenyans have on the political parties act. The political parties act is expected to restore sanity in politics in Kenya by reining in lords and masters of political deceit and rendering their influence ineffective. Although this expectation could be viewed as far-fetched, the political parties act is the the only one which will allow Kenyans to engage in issue-based politics for this country's own good.