Some of what comes out of the mouths of Kenyan politicians is truly frightening

One big problem with Kenyan politicians is that they hardly think before opening their mouths. All too often the verbal diarrhoea spouting from the political platforms should have us all running for cover.

Attend any campaign rallies and you will have a fair share of violent, divisive talk. You will hear aspirants for the highest office in the land coming across as mean, petty, vindictive, and greedy.

Actually, maybe the tendency to loose tongues is a good thing. Ever heard of the truism that the drunkard in a bar is the one you can trust to tell the truth on exactly what he thinks about you?

The unbridled tongues on the political soapbox serve exactly the same purpose. They allow us to gauge which fellows are asking for the vote just so that they can have their turn to rob, loot, and plunder.

We can see which fellows are seeking office so that they can have licence to pursue violent ethnic pogroms.

It is also through the unchecked tongues that we can isolate the jokers who are running for nothing more substantial than ethnic chieftainship.

With our history of unchecked official corruption and the culture of violent ethnic competition for power, some of what comes out of the mouths of our politicians is truly frightening.

It reveals an entire leadership class that has never learnt the lessons of history.

Just the other day, it was none other than President Uhuru Kenyatta revealing his leadership philosophy with that unfortunate “nyama tutakula”remark.

STANDS FOR

While many are still trying to digest, no pun intended, what the president stands for, opposition chief Raila Odinga is not to be left behind.

He unashamedly called on “all Kenyans from Mandera, Isiolo, Samburu, Kajiado and elsewhere to arm themselves with spears, arrows and other weapons to go to Nairobi and remove [Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission chairman Issac] Hassan’s team”.

Now, his apologists would say that Mr Odinga was speaking of weapons in the metaphorical rather than literal sense. Mr Odinga himself denies that his was a call to violence, but it is still an extremely reckless and dangerous statement given our predilection to solving differences with spears, bows and arrows, and pangas. When reckless demagogues such as Jubilee MPs Ferdinand Waititu and Moses Kuria publicly incite their mindless mobs to violence, we demand that the law take its course.

Same should apply to Mr Odinga or any other politician, however senior.

The opposition chief, in any case, plays into the hands of his enemies when he utters words that serve to confirm long-standing accusations that his political career has been built on rabble rousing.

It would be convenient to dismiss the utterances of President Kenyatta and Mr Odinga as just harmless analogies. Indeed, their respective bands of supporters have been in damage-control mode, saying that the words are being taken out of context.

UNCHECKED AVARICE

However, those dangerous words can only be taken within the context of Kenya’s political history of unchecked avarice and violence.

It is within the same context that one must look at the outrageous campaign by Rift Valley politicians against the appointment of Prof Laban Ayiro as acting vice-chancellor of Moi University.

Uasin Gishu Governor Jackson Mandago and his Elgeyo Marakwet counterpart, Alex Tolgos, have been at the forefront of the campaign to have a Kalenjin “homeboy”, Prof Isaac Kosgey, named to fill the vacant position.

The blatant ethnic meddling seems to have struck a strong cord in the region and elevated the politicians to community heroes.

What makes this particularly worrying is this happening in a region that has always been at the flashpoint of ethnic political violence in Kenya. It reveals that the atavistic attitudes that shaped the Rift Valley ethnic cleansing, pitting the Kalenjin against other ethnic groups, are still very strong in Deputy President William Ruto’s stronghold.

The impunity and sense of entitlement bequeathed the region by retired President Daniel arap Moi’s one-party dictatorship still holds despite the lessons of the failed International Criminal Court prosecutions and the ensuing peace and power-sharing pact between President Kenyatta and Deputy President Ruto.

We are seeing that the Uhuru-Ruto pact brought only a temporary ceasefire, with the threat of ethnic violence in that region still very much alive.

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@MachariaGaitho