Why we owe Kivuitu an apology

OPINION:

KTN Kenya

 http://bitly.com/WfrwG8

You all remember that scene, leaders berating former elections chief Samuel Kivuitu for presiding over shambolic elections in 2007.They were all foaming at the mouth, the veins in their necks bulging to bursting point. They shouted, their argued, they ranted. Darn it, they could have pounded Kivuitu to pulp, pinched his nose.

And now see what the same leaders who, we are meant to believe, are smarter, more resolute, and more reformist, have done. Their elections were far from shambolic. They were a joke – a farce.

Kenyans, long accustomed to disappointment, found the charade funny, of course apart from a few clowns who take life too seriously and resorted to violence. Can’t you guys take a joke?

Personally, I found the chaos quite refreshing because it was a nice demonstration of the sort of ineptitude we always vote for.
A fortnight ago, while my eyes were glued on TV following a political rally, I noticed someone I know, who is pretty well educated, gazing at a political leader with this orgasmic look on his face.

Transforms
If that leader had said ‘come lick my boots’, he would have stepped forward with pride and licked all the big man’s mud away.
It never ceases to amaze me why fairly reasonable people pick a chap who is obviously a crook and elevate him to a deity.
Maybe it is the clothes.

Nakedness has a way of making us look like the pathetic ugly creatures we are. But when a man jumps beneath a shower, splashes some cologne in his armpit, brushes his teeth, puts on a fairly decent suit and a pair of shoes, he changes.
The average maize thief transforms into a figure of respectability. And in Kenya, he doesn’t even need to be a good orator.

He hops upon a podium, dances badly, hollers a few things, waves his arms around and suddenly, relatively reasonable people become willing to purchase machetes and hack his ‘political enemies’ to death.

Pretend
While we all know he represents the worst that a Kenyan can be, we allow ourselves to pretend he has been rightfully elected even when we know he rigged it.We deposit him in a Government car, stick a flag on it, arm and position a thug who was his campaign enforcer behind him as a bodyguard and start discussing him in bars and marketplaces.

Annoyingly, we allow such fellows, who can’t organise elections for class prefect, to blast civil servants who are often way smarter.I think the only people who sympathise with us are politician’s wives. Wives are interesting people because they see their husbands naked, shorn of the flashy suits and fake smiles.

They know them for the broke, spineless, double-dealing cheats they are. And when they see us dancing ourselves lame in their husbands’ honour, staring at them with ecstasy on our faces, they probably muse, “If you knew that b******d the way I know him, you would fling mud in his face.”