There is a State agency known as Kenya Film Classification Board (KFCB), the place where Ezekiel Mutua picked the nickname “Deputy Jesus” when he was in charge. Well, KFCB seems to have mellowed since Dr Mutua left in 2021 under a cloud of controversy.
But somebody should now wake up KFCB from its watershed period slumber. Why? Good guess but, no. No one is trying to sneak in another unchristian film that violates African values.
The reason why KFCB should rediscover the Ezekielian zeal is that TV news bulletins need to be urgently moved out of the watershed period because exposing our children to that content has become increasingly harmful.
Since we will have an election in the next 16 months or so, politicians are out and about doing what they do best: Talking. And it is becoming uglier by the day. Leading the clown parade is the President and his former deputy, two men who only two short years ago were as thick as thieves.
In 2022, they even managed to convince seven million sane adults that they were the hottest pair since Adam and Eve, a match made in heaven. But now, they are fighting like males of the Maasai Mara during the breeding season, exposing the lurid details of each other’s nocturnal mischief – both carnal and financial.
It is unfortunate that President William Ruto and former deputy Rigathi Gachagua are straying into a territory that should be the preserve of online goons-for-hire, some MCAs and a few rough-hewn MPs.
The result? Watching the news with your children has become a dicey business: You never know when a dignified speech during a dam-commissioning ceremony somewhere in Kitui is going to breach the banks of decency and turn into a torrent of presidential profanities.
To be fair to Ruto and Gachagua, Kenyan politics has always been marked by risqué talk, mostly raunchy jokes and ethnic slurs. And the politicians are often egged on by the crowds, with their appreciative guffaws and howls of ‘toboa!’ (reveal more).
The world over, politicians are not expected to be the models of prim and proper behaviour. Ask the Americans, whose president openly celebrates the death of a decorated war hero, uses four-letter words in public and gets a kick from humiliating female reporters.
That notwithstanding, the President and Gachagua cannot be expected to be as crass in speech and reckless in conduct like your average politician.
We expect better behaviour from a politician of Gachagua’s calibre – a former second in command, a party leader, an aspiring president. But we expect even more stately conduct from the “Symbol of National Unity”. Kenyans expect a little more restraint from the sunroof of the vehicle that bears the nation’s court of arms.
They deserve value for money from a Sh17 billion-a-year office – not pronouncements that border on cheap bar talk and schoolyard taunts.
The President’s die-hard supporters never tire to remind us to respect the office “even if you don’t respect the man”. By the same token, the President should respect his office, even if he doesn’t care about his own reputation.
Besides the eye-watering billions that the President’s office gobbles up every year, Kenyans, willingly or otherwise, invest a lot in the presidency, including blood, sweat and tears, particularly during elections.
The least that the occupant of the office can do is try to conduct himself in a manner that befits the exalted position. Kenyans have enough problems already without having to worry about the moral dangers that the 7pm news can expose their young ones to.
But judging from the aftermath that infamous speech (rant was more like it) that “united” the nation, it is clear that our leaders are not about to come to their senses. They are escalating the war of words and playing the infuriatingly infantile game of “he started it”, instead of choosing to be the bigger person and stopping it.
And now that the President has brought the bar to historic lows, the bloggers and other political mobsters and hirelings, who thrive on vulgarity, will have to descend to even lower levels lest they find themselves out of business.
That means it is about to get louder and cruder. From here, it is downhill till Election Day.
