Day President Uhuru Kenyatta spoke on the things he can no longer enjoy

By Joseph Ngugi

The presidency comes with power but also checks, traditions and limitations.

Being the president of a country is a frustrating job and President Uhuru Kenyatta now knows this much better than anybody else.

The presidency is a very anti-social job. The holder cannot just pick his coat and a walking stick and saunter away from his house to visit his former drinking buddies the way he used to do, long before he was handed the instruments of power. The moment you receive these instruments, you cease to be a private person and become the property of the state of Kenya.

These are the frustrations President Kibaki had to face while trying to please his drinking and golfing buddies at the Muthaiga Golf club. The same frustrations he also suffered trying to convince the country that he had only one family, which comprised his dear wife Lucy and his four children.

The talk from the grapevine that he had been seeing a certain lady politician and that he had even sown wild oat with her had to be dismissed with the contempt it deserved. The pain on the President’s face while trying to explain what no man should be forced to do on camera was telling. Kenyans, indeed, had to accept that the president was no longer an ordinary man and the trappings of power equally came with social consequences.

Any president coming to power has to reluctantly accept his new official role and move on. Recently, nobody sounded more frustrated with his new role than our President Uhuru Kenyatta. While addressing Kenyans at the London Intercontinental hotel, President Kenyatta said that the presidency was not a simple matter. It required self-sacrifice and self-denial as well as unprecedented discipline.

President Uhuru knows that he now has to live his newly acquired status just like the Caesar’s wife. He must be beyond reproach.  For President Kenyatta, there were so many places he wished he could visit after work but couldn’t. The security details who mind him always had to be consulted. His life depended on them and the elite, mean-eyed Israeli-trained commandos’ word on security of their boss is law. The President has to listen when they talk. Very few people get the President’s ear more than his security men.

Giving an insight on how he has been spending his evenings since he became the president, Uhuru said that all that he does now was to remain indoors after dark and watch news as well as some Nollywoodmovies with his dear and public shy wife, Margaret. As the President poured out his heart to his countrymen, people could clearly tell why the first lady looked a happier woman now. She fervently giggled and occasionally burst into loud laughters. Which woman, in her wildest dream, wouldn’t want her husband indoors straight from work at 5pm. This is a feat hardly achieved by most Kenyan men who like hanging around pubs and Nyama choma places every evening after work.

The only irony is that the president doesn’t voluntarily choose to be home before the state house’ chickens have returned to their run. It is the entire state’s security machinery that has tamed him?

Although the first Lady did speak heart out, and I am sure only very few people have heard her speak in public, the grinning and the giggles said it all. She was happier in the State House than while they lived away from it. More giggled had to come when the crowd shouted that they wanted the first lady to speak to them, although this time it was President Kenyatta who was down in stitches. The president was aware that the first lady is dead shy. She seems to lack words every time she opens her mouth trying to speak.

To please the excited crowd which was now shouting, “mama, mama!,”  the first lady stood up, looked at the president whose hands were now on his head as he laughed loudly. She looked at the crowd and then to Ambassador Jackline Yonga who was the master of ceremony and reluctantly walked to the stand where the microphones were.

The hall fell silent. Surely this was the moment every Kenyan had waited for. The first lady was to make her maiden speech.

But it wasn’t to be. Mrs Kenyatta just smiled, looked at the crowd and President Kenyatta before mumbling some inaudible words, which even the closest microphone couldn’t pick. It was time to walk back to her seat. I just realised how hard it must have been to be the President’s wife.  It is quite a stately task.