The Standard Group Plc is a
multi-media organization with investments in media platforms spanning newspaper
print operations, television, radio broadcasting, digital and online services. The
Standard Group is recognized as a leading multi-media house in Kenya with a key
influence in matters of national and international interest.
President William Ruto and ODM leader Raila Odinga after signing a political agreement at KICC, Nairobi, on March 7, 2025. [File, Standard]
I seriously think that some people view this country as nothing more than a nice juicy cake to be shared among a small gluttonous elite that believes they must gorge themselves and the public be damned.
The cake is baked by hoi polloi, for the epicureans to fatten themselves while the public cheer them on. They wine and dine at our expense as we collectively feast on air burgers.
We are quite happy to peer through the window as this fancy feast takes place and hope that some morsels might be left over, usually every five years when the election cycle comes up.
I was looking at the way our politics shift with the slightest change of weather and I can’t help wondering whether we are not a doomed lot.
We have sworn enemies somehow discovering they have always been best of friends save for minor disagreements here and there. A casual web search will unveil the two faces of the average politician.
They will call each other names, spew epithets left and centre but, when the time comes for political alliances to facilitate the eating of the cake, the same people will pledge love to each other.
They will converge behind dark curtains and craft power sharing contracts (for that’s what they are) without thinking about the well-being of the rest of the people.
The recent power sharing, if you ask me, is nothing more than a Faustian pact that can only benefit a certain group of people. It’s never about the good of the nation; no. It’s always about the good of my party, my people, my family.
The reality the world over is that, politicians will always negotiate with each other in forming a government. This is realpolitik where they form coalitions to pass laws that govern the country. In Kenya, it’s never about just having a majority in Parliament to pass laws; it’s about sharing positions of influence regardless of the anointed individual’s ability and intellectual disposition.
Buy you can’t always blame the politicians; the average voter is to blame too. In fact, they are the real culprits. They vote in the same calibre of people then cry that they didn’t know they would turn out that way.
We can clearly see they are wolves in sheep’s clothing, but we are blinded by a handout of a few hundred shillings.
We see our politicians attending harambees in helicopter convoys (if there is such a thing) and gas guzzlers but we never ask where this money came from.
Mouth agape, we look at the ‘leaders’ and speak in whispers how so and so is now flying in a helicopter for some grand opening of an ablution in the middle of nowhere while the other day, he would have, at best, just cycled in with his black mamba.
A man who the other day was wearing ill-fitting second rags is now suffering from acute sartorial decadence, having discovered that all along, he had a taste for expensive brands, but acute poverty could not allow them such indulgence. This is our reality today.
Even when once in a blue moon we get someone who looks like they might have just one honest bone in their body, that person flips into a hungry gremlin in a Kafkaesque metamorphosis.
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Of course, we still have a few good men who never forget why they were elected, but they are few and scattered in between. Even when they call out the wolves, people just block their ears.
We have a long way to go but I believe salvation will only come with the generations behind us, who, as much they love a good life, do not suffer from a poverty and acquisitive mentality. They will be the generation that will wean us from the ‘eat all you can when you have a chance’ predisposition.
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The Standard Group Plc is a
multi-media organization with investments in media platforms spanning newspaper
print operations, television, radio broadcasting, digital and online services. The
Standard Group is recognized as a leading multi-media house in Kenya with a key
influence in matters of national and international interest.
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