Uhuru’s address must bring Kenyans closer to hope, food

Today is the day President Uhuru Kenyatta returns to our television sets to announce the most important decision of his life since Covid-19 started making us live abnormally more than two months ago.

While Kenyans would have loved to get hints so that we know whether to begin packing our bags or bicycles, we trust the President did take time to study the predicament Covid-19 has put us into, and if time wasn’t on his side, Kenyans hope the few who drink top government secrets for breakfast came through for him.

For two months now, we have been doing everything in our power to convince the President to have mercy on us and our families who have suffered since the government put a thermostat on our mobility and a superglue on our bank accounts.

RELIGIOUS LEADERS

We even have sent our religious leaders to plead for the reopening of places of worship for us to go back to the house of the Lord so that we could go report ‘Corona’ to our Father.

We hope they made a compelling case for the resumption of worship.

At a time when we are questioning the effectiveness of our MPs to represent public interest, our religious leaders remain our last line of defence.

If they failed to represent us during that meeting, then we will have to ask God to expedite His return, and He shouldn’t send his son this time because we might crucify him again.

We also trust that our epidemiology and disease surveillance experts have been sending periodical presentations to the President, detailing the shape of Kenya’s Covid-19 graph and what the President should do to bend it like Beckham.

The decision he shall announce today, therefore, will not have come from an easy place.

Every Kenyan agrees that the coronavirus is not only bad for our health, but also bad for our economy.

If we die, we will not be able to enjoy the benefits of the Covid-19 relief, and while we all want to go to heaven someday, we aren’t prepared to die just yet, and not certainly from a disease we trust the government to help us from catching.

We also want to witness our children return to take their seats in school to become those things they said they wanted to be when they grow up.

ATTEND GRADUATION

We want to attend their graduation while taking photos for Instagram with those feel-good hashtags that run longer than the number of stadiums the Jubilee government promised to build.

However, while we may want to witness the second coming of Jesus, we are cognisant of the fact that we cannot live long if we stayed away from interacting with food.

This might sound cliché, but Kenyans are currently on their knees begging for a supernatural intervention because if things continue the way they are, it would be difficult to step on the bathroom weighing scale since we won’t even have the energy to do so.

While we understand it may be difficult for the government to create new jobs during this period, the least we can request that we don’t lose the few remaining ones that are currently surviving by the skin of their teeth.

As the President announces the way forward, Kenyans hope he will remember the terminally ill who haven’t been accessing critical care services at their preferred points of care because of the restrictions in movement and depletion of reserves to pay for the services occasioned by the loss of jobs.

We do pray, also, that he shall factor in our chronic poor, living from hand to mouth, and who trek to work every day looking for menial jobs to fend for their families and other fraternal dependants who rely on their goodwill to chair the meeting of two ends.

THE POOR

The poorest of the poor have been the most affected by the unwelcome visitation of Covid-19 and a further trip of the economy downwards will escalate their vulnerability, and no one is ready to see protests on the streets because this will jeopardise social distancing regulations and take us back to square one.

As the President comes forward to face Kenyans today with the news that will determine our collective fate, we do hope everyone to whom the President gave a listening ear had our interests in their hearts and not their interests in their pockets.

We hope those who have contributed to the difficult decision being made today not only represented their country well, but also made their parents proud.

While Kenyans might not have resources to pay you for the job you’ve just done, we hope that you will withhold your invoices until the economy returns to normal. Otherwise we shall thank you later for your service, after the President addresses us today.

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