Lessons from baboon politics

Animals are interesting creatures. For them, love is restricted between a mother and her young, seduction merely a prelude to baby making, nothing more.

As a result, there are no coffee dates in the wild and animals don’t mate for fun like humans, but strictly to make babies. They also ensure they give birth at the onset of the rains, when food is plenty.

Thus, female animals don’t waste time getting seduced. Instead, they leave a trail of hormonal evidence suggesting they are ready to make a baby. So when a female baboon is in season, its bottom puffs up and becomes red. This is what is happening with our politics as the election – whose date no one truly knows – nears.

Every political bottom is flaming red, advertising to all and sundry that they are available and ready to be taken by the alpha male, which in this case is any party leader, briefcase or otherwise.

It’s a reflection of how closely our politics and politicians mirror the lifestyle of an average baboon.

For starters, a baboon can’t decide whether it is an omnivore, a carnivore, a scavenger or a plain thief. Baboons eat fruits, leaves, snakes and lizards – even goat meat. And so is the average party leader.

Attack enemies

Give them a snake that has done time for rape and murder and the politician will devour it for political gain. Equally, baboons are shamelessly promiscuous. The alpha male – in our case the party leader – has priority mating rights and once he’s done, the riffraff can join the party. In the same manner, a Kenyan politician will redden his or her bottom and defect from the leading party to outfits no one has ever heard of.

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But just like politicians, baboons don’t respect women. They will see a man and tremble with fear but they ignore women, even those armed with machetes.

The most they do is scratch their sexual organs in much the same way a male politician says, "This woman is a harlot because she has no husband. How can she challenge me?

Baboons also have enemies, foremost being the leopard. And they scamper up the nearest tree, squealing with fear, at the faintest whiff of leopard urine. That’s also what happens when a plan – real or imagined – to assassinate a politician is unearthed. Drama!

Unfortunately, the most vital lesson that baboons should have taught our politicians was ignored. Baboons attack enemies in a "V" formation, like the infantry. That sort of formation allows the enemy to tactically retreat, as opposed to encircling and cornering them, which makes the enemy extremely dangerous because they have no choice but to fight bitterly to the last man.

If Prime Minister Raila Odinga and former ODM official William Ruto had fought politely in a "V" formation, allowing the other chance to tactically retreat, things would be different. Hilariously, Tinga and Deputy Prime Minister and Local Government Minister Musalia Mudavadi are making the same mistake – fighting bitterly to the last man.

Harambee Stars must bid Oliech bye

News that Harambee Stars striker Denis Oliech has quit the national team could be the best that has happened to football in this country. The lad has done duty for his country. Let him rest.

His departure should allow whoever is responsible for football to sort things out. You can’t build a national football team around one star.

For years, Oliech has shouldered the nation’s football aspirations, together with keeper Arnold Arigi and midfielder Macdonald Mariga. Now, much as Oliech is a lethal striker, he can do naught if no one hands him a decent pass. And much as Mariga is good on his feet, he can do naught if the guys around him can’t kick their own feet.

There is also no denying that Arigi is the closest we had to a keeper who could have risen to the fabled status of legendary ‘Kenya One’ Mahmoud Abbas. But if his defence is awful, he can’t stop all the shots coming his way at point blank range, however good he is.

Note, Abbas had serious cover. Before you blasted a shot in his direction, you had to contend with the menacing Murila. That team’s midfield was fire and by the time they placed a pinpoint pass to Dr Masiga, the dentist could have slammed it home with his eyes closed. Theirs was a team of eleven men, but the current Harambee Stars has always been about one man – Oliech.

If the Flying Squad is a deadly police unit, it is because every man is as a deadly as the next. And if the regular guys are, well, regular, its because they have sharpshooters in their ranks and clowns who can’t shoot their own noses. So let’s bid Oliech bye and do what every serious country does — build a team.

Disasters are here

The way these rains are behaving, the folks who manage disasters around here had better be having sleepless nights. That doesn’t mean they should prepare a begging bowl for a disaster fund as some naughty cartoonist suggested recently. They shouldn’t even be worrying about flooding in Budalang’i, Nyando and parts of River Tana.

Flooding in those parts has become so commonplace that it would be silly to refer to them as disasters. The real disasters are happening on our roads, which are death traps at the best of times. But at the first hint of drizzle, like now, they become something else.

People lose their eyesight, their brains and their common sense to the extent that virtually every kilometre, you run into a Kenyan who is trying to get killed or to kill someone else.

They will be pushing or repairing their jalopies on the road, crossing like blind bats across dark highways, cycling without reflectors and doing everything possible to get murdered or get someone murdered. I hope Kenya Red Cross Society – they are the real disaster managers in this country – are taking notes.

Busy Bill

You have to hand it to Mr William Ruto. In a Rambo sort of feat, he is boxing Mr Raila Odinga, kicking Luis Moreno-Ocampo and his court in the teeth, marshaling forces for a presidential run and battling a rebellion in his Kipsigis backyard, not to mention a few local court cases.

Yet he has also been burning the midnight oil. Only recently, he bagged a masters degree in Science. Now he has retreated to the soggy clays of Saiwa Swamp National Park for his doctoral research. Which feminist blond said men can’t multi-task, Dr Bill?

Not in this age!

The National Social Security Fund (NSSF) has embarked on a media campaign to encourage workers to confirm their pension statements. Even without checking, I can bet the Indian headmaster I worked for as an untrained teacher in 1989 never remitted my money.

Still, for me to go to my nearest NSSF office, I require Sh500 for fuel, Sh140 for parking and a pound to bribe street urchins. Not economical considering I save only Sh300 a month. Any chance they can have some IT wizard wire up something we can lazily check on mobile phones?

Traffic madness

Mombasa Road is a breeze these days – 15 minutes and you are home. Unfortunately, you spend 40 minutes in a traffic jam between the Multimedia University and your rented hovel in Ongata Rongai.

Reason? Matatus blocking the road to fill up passengers for a pound each to Kiserian. It doesn’t help that everyone is driving to Tusky’s supermarket to buy bread and milk and blocking the road. Before this supermarket was constructed, someone must have carried out an environmental impact assessment. Beats me how they missed the traffic jams. And now Uchumi is coming. Help!

Ordering Saitoti

Prime Minister Raila Odinga has ordered Internal Security Minister George Saitoti to ‘deal’ with Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere over that little skirmish between police and protestors in Limuru.

Unfortunately, I have this sneaking feeling that neither Saitoti nor Iteere are quaking in their boots for the simple reason that there is little the PM can do. He can neither fire Prof Saitoti nor even suspend Mr Iteere.