Sunday, January 13, 2013

If we can have a bogus police boss, how about a fake President?


By Mwenda Njoka
Watching the latest circus in town starring one Joshua Waiganjo, the so-called police ‘impostor’ and featuring the immediate former Commissioner of Police Mathew Iteere, the suspended Rift Valley PPO John M’Mbijjiwe and the interdicted Anti-Stock Theft Unit boss Michael Ngugi, I found myself taking a flight of fancy into the realm of the impossible: what if at some point in the history of this country we have had, we have or we shall have a counterfeit president?
Well, before you laugh, consider this. With all the things hitherto considered impossible becoming almost commonplace nowadays, nothing is absolutely impossible in this country anymore.
The soon-to-be 50-year-old great Republic of Kenya has had three presidents. Perhaps somewhere along the way one, may be two or even all the three of them were not the real McCoy. Perhaps we need a commission of inquiry to ascertain if one, two or all our three presidents were the real deal or not.
With ‘impostors’ getting away with so much, you can never be too sure you know.
Why such dark thoughts, you ask? Because if you can have someone purportedly impersonating a senior security official as an Assistant Commissioner of Police and, as we are told, getting away with it for, not just a day or two, but several years and as if that is not bad enough, taking chopper rides and hobnobbing with Who’s Who? in the security business, and still remaining incognito, then anything, absolutely anything, is possible in Kenya.
If you doubt, allow me to regale you with a little story that came to light on the eve of Christmas about ten years ago.
It happened that a Legio Maria adherent one Onyango Mano was taking a leisurely walk in the neighbourhood of State House, Nairobi when he got this strong urge to stroll into the Big House on the Hill. And he did.
Without an army to help him break through the heavily barricaded State House gates or a Mission Impossible-style ladder to help him climb over the electrified fence, Onyango not only got into State House compound, but also went right inside the building to the very sanctum of power.
Once inside State House, he walked into one of the rooms near the President’s office and felt it was time to take a nap. And he did. For a good seven or so hours before the cleaners found the sleeping stranger right next to the President’s State House office enjoying a good sleep in the wee hours of that December Sunday morning some ten years ago.
Now, if a stranger could walk right into State House, casually stroll into an office a few metres from the one used by the President, find an unlocked door and enjoy a good night’s sleep, what is impossible in this country?
If some fellow can ‘pretend’ to be an Assistant Commissioner of Police, hire and fire “colleagues” at will besides socialising with the powerful and mighty in the security world for years, what is impossible in Kenya?
Such things sound stranger than fiction, but you know what, when truth and reality, during their nocturnal strolls meet with fiction, they often wonder why anyone gets interested in fiction when it is they (truth and reality) who rule in the dominion of strangeness.
So as we prepare ourselves to go to the polls in just about 50 days, we might as well start asking ourselves; who among the potential candidates presenting themselves to us for election as President is the real McCoy and who the impostors are.
The writer is Managing Editor of The Standard On Sunday


No comments:

Post a Comment