Stop this hypocrisy; in Keter’s shoes, most of us would have done the same

Many young people today would do anything to reach the dizzying heights of YouTube sensation.

Millions around the globe expend plenty of time, energy, effort, and imagination on singing, dancing, practical jokes, play-acting, stupid pranks, and all the other things that might attract attention on the premier video-sharing site.

Nandi Hills MP Alfred Keter become an instant video celebrity without putting in too much effort — he just played himself.

The MP simply needed to do what he and other Kenyan legislators do as a matter of routine. He barged into the offices at the Gilgil weighbridge accompanied by his friend and fellow United Republican Party MP, Sunjeev Birdi, to try to bully and intimidate the police officers into releasing a detained truck owned by the latter.

As he dropped names with wild abandon and punctuated his tirade with liberal use of the F-word, luck was on his side as one of the officers was surreptitiously filming the drama.

INTERNET SENSATION

Within no time, Mr Keter had become an internet sensation and hogged prime-time on all the main Kenyan television news bulletins and headlines in the main newspapers.

The man must be thanking his lucky stars that the world has seen him in action. Every petty little policeman and bureaucrat will from now on know not to mess with an MP who can brazenly declare that “we are the government”, proclaim that his job of making laws allows him to break those same rules, and throw the President’s name into the mix.

That he walked out of his moment of bravado a free man, without even a well-deserved slap and kick in the backside, will be proof positive that indeed, some Kenyans are more equal than others. Many of his colleagues who have not been lucky enough to have their heroics captured on video will no doubt be jealous of Mr Keter’s good fortune and will be wondering just how he pulled it off.

Probably they will redouble their efforts in public displays of arrogance and stupidity in the hope that some video camera might just catch them at it.

Mr Keter’s antics have drawn widespread condemnation, and herein lies the hypocrisy: He did not do anything that his fellow politicians do not do as a matter of routine. Okay, we may say that Kenyan politicians are a unique sub-human species that will be expected to forever put on display primitive behaviour.

HONESTLY SWEAR

But what about the rest of us? How many of us can stand up and honestly swear that we do not call our MP, policeman friend, member of the county assembly, schoolmate who became a magistrate, or anybody who knows somebody when we are caught on the wrong side of the law?

It could be a minor malfeasance, such as a traffic offence or bar brawl, or something more serious like robbery or big-time fraud. Whatever it is, our default position is first to call somebody of influence, or at least somebody who knows somebody of influence.

Therefore, other than going overboard with his colourful turn of speech, Mr Keter’s intervention on behalf of Ms Birdi was completely in keeping with what we expect of people of influence.

It is sheer hypocrisy when we condemn the MP, yet most of us would have been more than ready to place that call if we landed in a spot of bother.

I have no doubt that Mr Keter deserves unrestrained condemnation, and he also needs to face the full force of the law if he offended the penal code.

However, let us not just be hypocritical about this, but use it as a lesson that we must individually respect the law and cease the national habit of name-dropping and seeking illegal intervention whenever we are caught breaking the law.

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We all laud private enterprise as the engine of growth and prosperity, but only in Kenya is “private developer” a dirty word. Meanwhile, Lands Minister Charity Ngilu did not exactly tell us who, before Harbans Singh and sons, grabbed the Lang’ata Road Primary School playground. We are still waiting for her to sing.

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