Locus horribilis, a horrendous place of no return. That is the impression you must get when, on your maiden arrival in a foreign country, you receive an anarchic reception at the airport.
That is if your aircraft lands, in the first place. You are probably here to explore business opportunities. You have heard of this Eldorado, the place of golden opportunities. You have funds to hedge in the land of Prester John, King Solomon, and Candide, rolled into one.
Before you left home, nobody told you trouble was brewing in a nation now accustomed to Gen-Z style of uprisings. Yes you, of course, read a bit about the youth bursting into the streets recently.
They spoke of assorted grievances against the state. But you were assured that they were passing clouds. That the country’s political top brass sorted out the mess, by forming a broad-based government, some say “bread-based.” For, it is about eating.
The President told his subjects that he had baked a giant loaf. It would “accommodate everyone.” By everyone, he meant all persons with ability and proclivity towards street battles. Each of these people now has a share, in a broad bread. Every shareholder in John Bunyan’s latter-day Pandemonium is happy.
Like Christians in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, people say, “I was there, and did rejoice to see Diabolus and Mansoul so agree.”
But, as you entered the country’s airspace, the captain of your flight made some anno, about possible fracas, “but nothing major to worry about.” After circling the airport several times, even detouring to a neighbouring country for a while, you eventually landed in the Green City in the Sun.
The sun you saw a bit of. The green is not so much. The natives have tampered with it. The rest, the sun has sorted out. You also didn’t see much of a city. Just a big town, with some slums you’ve just overflown. They make the place Robert Curtius’ veritable locus horribilis.
If you don’t take the expressway from the airport, you will encounter craters in the road. Mannerless motor vehicular transport crisscrosses these roads like spaghetti. Motorbikes cut in from all directions, like expert ball jugglers.
You have only come across such things in their own Karanja Wa Kang’ethe’s book titled Mission to Gehenna. You encounter burst sewers, a rotting dead dog here, a dead cat there, and some other rotting road stuff you cannot quite define.
One dead canine looks like it’s only enjoying mid-morning sunshine. Only that its dead tongue hangs grotesquely from its dead mouth. The bloody patch about it, and stock dead eyes, attest to its deadness.
But all that is for later. Just now you are at the airport, named for the big man credited with the “founding” of the chaotic nation. It is free for all bedlam. The police and the people in the airport remind you of Mr Peter Tosh, singing about “police and thieves” in the street. “Police and thieves in the street, fighting the nation with their guns and ammunition. Scaring the nation with their guns...”
So what is happening here? The political top brass, it would appear, are about to steal the very airport you’ve just landed at. Maybe they already did?
They have apparently got into a secret deal with a sleazy business magnate from Asia. They are handing him the airport for a song.
It is emerging that this sleek businessman is a conduit for so much more that could cripple the country for good.
The smooth operator is mentioned in virtually every sector. It is no longer doubtable that, in fact, the political top cats are, themselves, shareholders in this man’s interests in the country.
Accordingly, no matter how loud the public outrage, the fat cats are determined to go on with the deals. As Mr Tosh would say, “All the crimes committed, day by day, no one tries to stop it, in any way. All peacemakers turn war officers...”
And so the Kenyan state turns everyone into a war officer of sorts, “fighting for survival.” The teachers, doctors, airport employees, all the way to the children; everyone is up in arms. But this place is not bedlam. It is no locus horribilis.
Enlightened citizens are only engaging against the last vestiges of political bad manners and misrule.
Someday, when you return to our city, you will know it was for a good cause. For now, forgive us the inconvenience. It’s the cost of liberation from kleptocracy.
Dr Muluka is a strategic communications officer. www.barrackmuluka.co.ke
