The things I learnt from Jacob Juma’s death

The African is a complex animal. You could gaze at him for hours, days, months. But the mystique that lies within us is so deep, so dark, that only a witchdoctor can unravel it.

Nothing sums up this better than trying to peel off the layers that make up Jacob Juma, the millionaire wheeler-dealer and whistle-blower rolled into one.

Juma was wealthy, no doubt. He counted among his friends and enemies some of the wealthiest and most sophisticated and powerful people in the land. He laundered his towels at the top drawer Serena Hotel. Yet when he died, it is not his well-heeled city friends but humble villagers from Mungore – old men for whom a choice whisky and busaa are one and the same – who pointed at a spot and said, “We will dig the grave and bury his bones here.”

That is vintage Africa. We fly away and, like the tawny eagle, soar into the sky, eating and sh**ing in the capital cities of the world. The village becomes a cobwebbed, distant blot in our pasts to which we may not return for decades. Our manner of dress and speech, our diets acquire alien sophistication. We spruce up our pedigree, make new friends and they become our brothers and sisters.

But our real people, the humble and simple folks who truly own us, the nondescript uncles in threadbare shirts and the matronly aunties in oversized cardigans who look oddly out of place at our weddings, hidden near the fence with toes peeping out of their shoes, they wait. They wait with the patience with which villagers graze their near worthless shenzi zebu cows. For they know we shall one day return home, as we must.

Our city friends milk millions from us, but our village folks take lots of pride in us, simply because we are, and for the 20 bob we fling their way every Christmas. They know us, talk about us, brag about us, yet for the most part, they are a battalion of people that we barely remember, tied to us by misty bonds that would astound a DNA expert. Those people with mud between their toes, they are our people.

And that sad day when we die, they troop to our ancestral homes and stand; wordless, crestfallen, eyes clouded with pain. They keep vigil, watch over graves for eternity, long after our city friends have driven their hangovers off. Because we are born of them. Their blood flows in our veins. We are son, daughter, brother, nephew, niece, mother, aunt, grandchild, childhood friend, neighbour.

But then Jacob Juma was also a deeply religious man. It is not every day that a requiem mass is held in one of the nation’s most iconic cathedrals, presided over by the Archbishop and head of the Anglican church.

Yet after Archbishop Wabukala, a man of God, had read from the scriptures and blessed the casket, Juma’s real people buried him like a man – lit torch, knives, live tortoise, and the ritualistic incantations of old, I hear. An eye for an eye. Mundu khu mundu.

This is Africa after all, and the line between religion and custom is paper thin. When the scriptures intrude into the things that we hold dear, like juju, politics, polygamy and beer, it has always been our custom to tell the church to go to hell. That is why Christians who go to church every Sunday are waiting with abated breath for the people who killed Juma to drop dead!

And then there is my kinsman, Saleh Wanjala, whom a police spokesman had earlier suggested would be charged with attempted suicide. For merely hitching a ride on a chopper’s landing gear? How preposterous!

Kenyans attempt suicide all the time, but no one charges them in court. Randy men collect strange women in pubs and crawl into their cars in drunken stupor only to wake up a week later, drugged, with their mouths smelling like urinals. No one arrests them for endangering their lives.

Kenyans board matatus, eat mutura, have unprotected sex, bet on football and join KDF. All these people endanger their lives. But has anyone rounded up all these jokers up and taken them to Kamiti?

Well, Wanjala may not be too clever, but a drunk 41-year-old man who can support his weight on a flying chopper for 1,000 metres explains why Bungoma is the third most populous county in Kenya. Men, if you wish to keep your women warm, happy and giggly till brokenness do you part, drink busaa and eat ugali!

There are other lessons for men, too. Big brother is watching you, my guy. You disappear for two days and cops will tell your wife: “Our cameras caught him popping into Sabina Joy at midnight. Then he staggered out with a woman who had sin printed all over her skimpy skirt. They were seen entering a house of sin in Mlolongo…”

Two days later, strangers in police uniform start leering all over your phone, sniffing through your WhatsApp messages and nude photos and going, “Uuu-lah-lah! Who would have thought mheshimiwa, with all his thunder, only packed a wee lil’ pea in his boxers!”