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The Instagram pix were worth a thousand words (or a hundred lives in Garissa) and infuriated #KOT and other Kenyans on the social media scene.
Two upper class looking ladies, with the obligatory designer shades, tweezed eye-brows, to give that cool, slightly surprised uppity expression; designer T-shirts and animal print pants sitting - nay, posing - on the steps of a police airplane that was their air taxi during holidays.
During December (#mombasarahatupu), maybe Valentine’s, and definitely on Easter. One of the girls was Ndanu Munene Mwiti, the daughter-in-law of Kenya Police Air Wing commandant, Rodgers Mwiti.
And what he had reportedly ‘commanded’ that fateful day, of April 2, 2015, was a dawn pick-up by the police plane of his daughter-in-law and grandson from Mombasa (so it was reported)- on the same day that terrorists commandeered Garissa University College and killed more than a hundred students.
As the Recce squad stood idly by for hours - like passengers on a lonely remote road where the bus chugs by once a day - for the police plane to return, at least that’s how it might have felt like.
If you cannot afford a private plane for your family, and are a top boss, there is always the ‘Pride of Africa’ which one can pay and get rides to the Coast. Then that wannabe behaviour of downloading pictures of one’s vacation to make friends envious - #mombasarahatu, #zanzibarmajitu, #dubaipalmtreestu!
Sheesh, give the public a break. There are folks who go places in different hemispheres and you’ll find just one snap on social media, if any at all. No one needs hourly updates about that lion the tour guide has lied you’ll catch up with in your puny white van.
You buy a monster like one Magero Gumo, fatally smash into the vehicle of a senior state lawyer like Kabaka Inyanje on Waiyaki Way and end up charged with causing death through reckless driving under the influence in a Kibera court.
Wannabes like this like to talk of ‘my German machine’ as if they are Adolf Hitler and personally ordered their construction. Talking Gs, it is very wannabe for a grown man, or even woman, to keep talking about her rich/powerful daddy.
It tells us the only race you ever won by yourself was the one where his spermatozoon out-raced the others to the ovum - and that happened before you were born!
Wheeler dealers like the cheap skunk in the expensive suit I saw shouting in a banking hall earlier this week about ‘Sh6.7 million’, so everyone can hear, are wannabes. Real dealers enjoy personalised banking - they are ushered to do their transactions kwa ofisi ya manager.
Then there are the big name droppers - ‘I was with Hassan Joho in the morning, I was with Ngilu in the afternoon.’ Nothing but wannabe watermelons, this sad lot. Don’t wear your Dolce&Gabbana suit with the label stuck prominently outside. Hiyo pia ni ‘name dropping!’
Posing like a king pin in front of your long bungalow in Karen is very wannabe. Especially if you are a preacher, pastor, prophet, et cetera. It does not mean you are blessed by God - kwani unafikira Mungu anakupenda kuliko watu wengine? It just means you have thick, woolly-headed followers!
Live within your means even as you work towards your goals, big or small. ‘Fake it till you make it’ is a wannabe’s silly slogan.
