Usual silly political games have begun

By Peter Wanyonyi

You cannot keep a good politician down. When used just before the word politician, ‘good’ doesn’t mean a nice person but a nasty creature.

The election register has hardly been closed, the petition ink is yet to dry off sore losers’ pens, and already we are getting into petty squabbles.

A couple of years ago, there was much mirth when the Prime Minister threw a tantrum about the absence of an executive toilet at his public rallies. Apparently, some junior protocol officers were intent on humiliating him and they ensured that his mobile toilet was not up to scratch. To rub salt into the wound, they even downgraded the quality of his red carpet. Wags claim the carpet the PM was provided with wasn’t even red in the first place.

But those were special days and it was important to put on displays of equality in a governing coalition riven with divisions and held together by the blood of murdered Kenyans.

Goodies

Today, things have changed. We have just held the most peaceful elections in our history and life is looking nice. Children all over the country are waiting for all sorts of digital goodies from the new president. Which is why it is hilarious that the Attorney General and the new governors are already squabbling over, of all the things, whether or not they (governors) can fly the national flag on their cars.

In Banana Republics like Kenya, the flag is not a symbol of the people and their aspirations. It is a representative of State power. Who gets to fly or even own a flag is an emotive issue, not far behind land. Indeed, chiefs have been known to terrorise villagers for not standing at attention when the national flag is lowered or raised.

Let the governors fly the national flag for heaven’s sake. After all, does it turn them into presidents?