Fidelity to truth is like seeking elusive lover on Valentine’s Day

Peter Kimani

I am not sure what the hullabaloo about MPs having two verdicts on the presidential nominees to the Judiciary is all about. Why, our fidelity to truth is as elusive as finding a lover on St Valentine’s Day, which was celebrated earlier in the week.

If you have been keeping track of some outfit called Infotrak, they have some interesting discoveries about men and women in relationships. But, more on that later.

First, before anyone casts the first stone, I want to jog our memory about a similar debacle involving scribes many moons ago.

My friend Barrack Muluka, if my memory serves me right, had been asked to chair a committee that would recognise and honour scribes in the country, under some fad called the Kenya Union of Journalists.

Now, when one mentions the union, you imagine men shouting in gruffly voices "Nyuuundo!" for hammer and sickle are the universal symbols of workers’ struggles for payslip liberation.

But scribes wouldn’t engage in such antics; they are more honest than that.

So while Barrack was delivering his message, explaining why they had settled on the winners, some idiot grabbed the microphone and alleged there was a mix-up as they had presented them with a different list from the one Barrack was reading!

For those who were old enough to have followed the fiasco, the idea of scribes dabbling in such schemes of deception could only happen if they involved politicians, not members of the Fourth Estate.

Well, the beauty of life is that people have very short memory, and one need not stink like a skunk after a thorough wash, and dressing in fine robes.

Scribes Of Yore

But I digress. The theme of this Valentine week is fidelity to the truth, and MPs’ cheap apemanship of scribes of yore, in developing two reports that say different things about the same event. The event being the nomination of individuals to serve in top Judiciary positions in this great country.

I am told the greatest discomfiture regarding the nominees partly stems from the fact that their names were released to the public so close to the hour of Prezzo’s 2008 swearing-in, which happened under the cover of darkness. But as the Bible and other religious texts teach, all that happens in the dark always comes to light — including the shenanigans that appear to dog every major appointment in this country.

For when leaders learn to lie through the teeth, they should always remember the philosophy in the expression: you can fool some people for some time, but not all the people all the time.

The heart of the matter with Valentine

First, a confession. I bought a bouquet of red roses on Monday for a young woman who is not my wife. But I sent my wife a text, or replied to what she had sent me.

You see, she is away, "mbali sana," (very far, if you ask my son Tumaini). But since Valentine’s Day doesn’t come every day, I decided to honour a young woman who has been very kind to Tumaini, they are like siblings.

I actually tried to haggle with the florist at Kasuku Centre in Kileleshwa, saying the Sh100 price tag for one rose was enough to feed a family with sukumawiki for a day or two. She did not budge.

But cleverer men had more interesting ideas. According to research company, Infotrak Harris, married couples topped the list of cheats over Valentine’s Day (and many more, one can safely bet), as 59 per cent said they would be marking the day with someone else other than their spouse.

They were followed by those who were engaged, as 48 per cent of them said they were practising what they would be doing once married: cheat.

Nearly half of dating couples or living together said they were in multiple romantic relationships.

God bless Kenya and all it’s big-hearted men and women who find it selfish to keep their affections to one individual and spread the love, sometimes a bit too thin.

Forever mommy’s good boy

Still on Valentine’s Day, Ciiku – the one and only – made my day by "busting" herself in the Press. She said she has not been dating (and doing all that appertains to dating) for three solid years.

Then she posed for the cameras to offer her male fans the poster of the year, and even spared love rats her daily bust of love rats "since it was Valentine."

She was back at work the following day, listening to a hapless young woman sobbing how she waited the whole night for her man, wearing things that won’t be repeated in this space.

"He said he was late at work," the besotted girl lamented. After some interrogation that helped Ciiku develop a mental (or whatever) picture of the man, she placed a call to him.

To divulge the whole plot would be to violate the plot. But the long and the short of it is that the man confessed to having blown some small fortune with his date for the day in "a romantic dinner" that lasted till midnight. "It was my mother!" the man said when confronted by his woman, who had listened in on his conversation with Ciiku. Ouch!