I heard the Nigerian reform-and-discipline minded president, Bushari, tell Nigerians the other day that change begins with ‘you and me.’ How we behave on our streets, public spaces, pubs, roads, offices and market places.
And I thought Kenya could well do with sorting out its wannabes, beginning with the government. I was sincerely appalled to read in The Standard that ten billion of taxpayer money is squandered each year on foreign travel. A billion five of that alone is at the Office of the President.
Some MCAs from Bungoma or somewhere wasted Sh 350 million in the last ten months ago on joy riding to-and-fro. This is ‘Marco Polo’ wannabeism of the lowest order. If you truly want to go to Singapore to find out how to make a wheel barrow for Sh 109,000 with accompanying side-mirrors, why not send just one member of the County Assembly to go, look and report?
Even as we celebrate ‘Heroes’ Day’ in a few days, let us remember that the Kavirondo Association Party ( or whatever KANU was called in 1929) just send one man, Jomo, to go learn the white man’s ways.
They were not all just wannabes, scrambling to get aboard the ship, the way our under-cultured MCA idiots ‘stowaway’ on tax pay on planes. At a lower level, though, wannabes are all over our streets like burst sewage on Landhies Road. I got up to no electricity mid-week, a black out that lasted dawn-to-dusk, because of some small rain that the wannabes at KPLC cannot tackle.
What if El-Nino came? We keep talking about Tatu Cities and 2030 super trains, but are really wannabes here because even sorting out transformers is very hard. Walking down the flight of stairs, I ran into our flat court care-taker who is that wannabe who has been promising to string up a kitchen curtain, but never comes, giving the high floor passerby a clear vista from kitchen through to the blue azure beyond my balcony.
Downstairs, there is a group of noisy wannabe Nigerians who live a dozen strong to the three bedroom apartment, and from my balcony out, I hear them shout and boast on the phones about mega-deals, all day long and half the night, but I am pretty sure these wannabes are swindling someone. They should star in a movie - ‘Swindler’s List.’
Outside, I catch a ma-three to take me to the shopping centre - and three PSV wannabes are already in play. The tout who wants ‘watu wanashuka shoppie’ to sit four aside (I flatly refuse, and pay an ‘ashu’ extra or whatever they call the ten bob coin these days). There is the big-boned Nairobi babe eating a burger in the mat - and one has to wonder if this is breakfast ama chai ya saa nne. A mobile meal, as she chews and talks into her pink mobile phone. Then the wannabe driver, a squaddie, manages to drive into the side of a stationary Pay TV truck.
We alight, I get back my ‘mbao’ on principle, and stroll the rest of the way to the shopping centre. In my head, I am wondering, ‘do these rapid fire things happen to every city dweller, ama it is just me, and Dryangula?’ (When el nino comes, he will be Wetangula)! The vendor at the shopping centre, a wannabe ras, ‘goteas’ me, which is okay, but always loudly shouts ‘Ras’ which I loathe because I am a wannabe rocker, and think the whole ‘ras philosophy’ of embracing Babylon oppression is BS, because one always has to fight The Man, rage against the machine.
As I type this piece, a young cyber idler makes me mad, muttering to rap lyrics ( in spite of his ear phones) until I tap him on the shoulder, and get that blank zombie stare of what? ‘You will never be Jay Z or P Square or Octopizzle or Kuku Sungura or whichever wannabe rapper fantasy you have playing in your head,’ I tell him. ‘So stop making kelele for [people] and listen to your s*** quietly.’
A random lady sends me a text at noon saying ‘si unitumie lunch’ just because last weekend we found ourselves on the same table after a function, and we ‘threw’ a beer or two in the spirit of good cheer. Who are these wannabes who always assume the state of their intestines, or worse, hair, is a global concern? Even the weather in Kenya has become wannabe.
We have waited, scared, for El-Nino with bated breath - but the joke going around is that El-Nino has been put on hold pending a suit to determine its suitability in the Supreme Court. The problem there is that wannabe wigged ones have gone on strike, saying nobody should retire at seventy when one is still so young, a wannabe spring chicken with so much yet left to offer the world.
tonyadamske@gmail.com
