Opinion: Why the land of Omogusii owes Uhuru Kenyatta a lot

President Uhuru Kenyatta acknowledging greetings from residents of Kisii town during his previous visit.

Folks, these past few days have been rather distressful to me. I am sure you feel it too.

I have seen many idle commentators and even the opposition no less, criticising our hard working president for a speech he made in Kisii the other day.

First, he did what any benefactor does - he reminded the Kisii community that they would be in a very bad place without him.

Secondly, the president, after much reflection felt the national duty to share some revelation on just who was behind the 2007/08 post-election violence.

It has been such a long time since this tragedy visited Kenya and it is about time someone resolved the mystery.

And we can’t fault the president for taking up the noble duty, can we?

That is what a caring president dwoes - helping the country to resolve difficult questions!

And we have to give it to the president for demonstrating absolute candour on national issues since he took office.

Or perhaps he just has great advisers. Who will ever forget how in the midst of national confusion, during the Mpeketoni attack, the president went on national television and told the country the whole truth about who had orchestrated that night orgy?

He put the blame squarely where it belonged. If it were not for the televised address, the country would still be in the dark about that horrific attack in June 2014.

In fact months later, the Al-Shabaab terror group, in a rather fruitless effort, released a video in which it claimed to have carried out the killings but no one believed any of it!

Even more recently, we have seen the president being very candid about the 7,000 kilometres of road network his government has built in a mere four years.

That is so much road that even by the calculation of opposition leader Raila Odinga, it can stretch all the way to Rome.

Then there is the staggering number of households now connected to electricity.

The president has laid it bare for all to see but the naysayers have refused to find anything good in what he does or says!

These are the same people who have a problem with the head of state launching a brand-new ferry service, never seen before in Mombasa.

And now his recent successful tour of Kisii is giving them nightmares.

So if I may ask, honestly, who are these people to fault the head of state about the visit when in fact the people of Kisii and Nyamira are over the moon about it?

Who are they to question the enduring bond between the Jubilee government and this great people?

Even political veterans like Professor Sam Ongeri have read the signs of the times and given way to the Jubilee juggernaut sweeping over the land.

Let’s be clear, the president had every right to visit Kisii and say whatever he wanted to say. The residents of Kisii and Nyamira counties owe him greatly, and he did well to remind them as much.

At great personal sacrifice and against all conventional wisdom, he has doled out countless government jobs to this small community, despite the fact that they gave him a cold shoulder in the last general election.

They did not deserve the slightest attention from the government, but the president chose to ignore all that.

If it were not for the magnanimity of the president, the community would not have dreamt of holding any position in the Judiciary, let alone the presidency of the Supreme Court.

If it were not for this president, the man we now want to name all our children after – Fred Magufuli Matiang’i – would perhaps be selling bananas at Keumbu market.

In fact, even ICT guru Dr Bitange Ndemo, who is credited with much of Kenya’s digital revolution, would only have gone as far as opening a cyber café in Keroka, if the president had not come to the community’s rescue.

It is no wonder that when the president left Kisii after his mammoth rally at the Gusii Stadium, police had a hard time containing the hundreds of disappointed supporters who took to the streets of Kisii, to protest his untimely departure.

In fact some were so angry about the president’s abrupt exit that they decided to burn any Jubilee T-shirt they could find around.

Indeed, Kisii and Nyamira residents should count themselves very lucky to have all these big government jobs.

They should ask their counterparts from counties that have not been blessed with cabinet positions and plum parastatal jobs.

It is pure horror out there. Life expectancy has dropped dramatically over the last four years, goats and sheep have stopped giving birth, there is a shortage of oxygen and in fact the sun only shines for six hours a day! No one wants that for another four years.

So from where I sit, I sense only envy in the president’s critics. Let them give him a break.

Wameze mate as the Land of Omogusii begins to eat meat!

 Mr Ageyo is the Managing Editor, KTN [email protected]