#FRONTROW: Could it be Jubilee’s turn to eat?

President Uhuru Kenyatta addresses mourners during the burial of William ole Ntimama in Motonyi Village, Narok County, on September 14, 2016. PHOTO | SULEIMAN MBATIAH | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • The Jubilee government talks big, including on corruption. In fact, a so-called State House Summit on Governance and Anti-Corruption has been scheduled for Monday.
  • As usual, it will be live on all the stations, with a friendly journalist moderating and asking softball questions.

Nobody has properly parsed President Uhuru Kenyatta’s remarks at the burial of William ole Ntimama and unpacked what he really meant. On this subject, if you read nothing except Facebook like most people, you’re thoroughly misinformed and you don’t even realise it.

The abundance of opinions doesn’t necessarily make them high-quality insights. Often, they are just the ramblings of people who wouldn’t recognise an original thought if it walked past them repeatedly.

There’s no point dwelling on them any further here because they don’t read newspapers anyway, yet somehow have something to say about a certain city girl. But that’s a story for another day.

In summary, what President Kenyatta meant at Ntimama’s burial is this: it’s our turn to eat. “Kumeza mate sio kukula nyama, kwa hivyo wenzetu endeleeni kumeza mate lakini nyama tutakula.”

Responding to Cord leader Raila Odinga, he told him not to salivate over the “meat” because they were eating it. It’s a rough translation of course, a more accurate rendering of what was said can be debated until the cows come home. It’s our turn to eat.

If that sentence sounds familiar, that must be because it is the title of Michela Wrong’s groundbreaking book on former anti-corruption czar-turned-whistleblower John Githongo. It was published in 2009 and referred to the corrupt practices of many of  the top officials in the Kibaki administration.

“Corruption in Kenya has deepened and widened since President Uhuru Kenyatta came to power in 2013,“ Githongo told AFP in August last year.

Unless you are safely hidden under a rock and don’t know what’s happening, it’s hard to argue with that assessment. The Inuka Trust CEO’s most scathing comments on this administration were published four months before that, in an interview with the Daily Maverick.

“This is the most corrupt administration since the [Daniel arap] Moi administration, if not more corrupt,“ he told them. 

LACK OF TRANSPARENCY

“There’s a lack of transparency that leads to suspicion, and then there is a plethora of scandals almost once every two weeks that seem to crop up… we have an administration that talks a lot, that is very good at the PR side of things, but that is deeply cynical in its execution of the fight against corruption.”

His analysis can be seen in new light when you watch the reaction of the government officials at Ntimama’s burial. When the president admonishes Cord about salivating while they eat, they all burst into laughter.

There’s plenty of video of that moment from all the major broadcast networks; go and study it again and make up your own mind.

The Jubilee government talks big, including on corruption. In fact, a so-called State House Summit on Governance and Anti-Corruption has been scheduled for Monday. As usual, it will be live on all the stations, with a friendly journalist moderating and asking softball questions.

Most of the media have been co-opted into the administration and the hashtag #TransformingKenya will be the talk of the day. Like all previous summits, no critical interrogation of the issues is entertained and dissenting voices are held at bay.

NO APOLOGY TO MAKE

“We have no apology to make about that remark,” National Assembly Majority Leader Aden Duale said on Sunday in Mathare to shouts of support from the crowd.

Not too far from them, the Cord brigade was channelling outrage about those salivating comments. The president meant the “meat” of Eurobond and the Standard Gauge Railway, Mbita MP Millie Odhiambo claimed. A few days earlier, it was Kakamega Senator Boni Khalwale singing that tune.

“Finally, President Uhuru, you have confirmed what I had always said,” the firebrand leader said. “That meat means Eurobond, SGR and the money they would have used to buy computers for our children.”

It is well and good that a national discourse is taking place about these ideas that the president reportedly picked up from a governor during his most recent trip to the coast.

The fact that he was confident enough about them to repeat them, and therefore, give them prominence, should be noted. Supporters have charged that his harsh tone was because he was incensed by Raila’s open politicking at the burial. He is a man who grew up in the spotlight and didn’t become president by allowing himself to get provoked into speaking out of turn.

Kenyans certainly need to spend more time keeping his government accountable — and honest — especially with regard to how it uses public funds. This is despite the restricting and misguided binary that his lieutenants prefer: “You’re either with us or against us.”

News flash to all of you Jubilee sycophants: you can criticise the government without necessarily being a supporter of the opposition. When the president speaks the way he did, we should all be concerned. Now more than ever, I love my country, it’s the government I am afraid of. 

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Yippee! Lupita can now make ugali!

Lupita Nyong’o is on the Vogue US cover for the third time, and it is everything and then some. She looks radiant in that headgear and it is perfect that they didn’t try to make her lighter to appeal to the American audience.

The pictures inside the October issue shot by photography royalty Mario Testino were taken at her rural home in Kisumu.

They show her grinning on the back of a boda boda, dancing with fellow Luo women, posing with her grandmother, and alongside her parents.

But the accompanying video of her learning to cook ugali from her mother has attracted the most attention in Kenya. She famously confessed to me last year that she missed ugali but didn’t know how to prepare it.

“I love to eat ugali, it is like a staple,” she explains. “When I admitted that I didn’t know how to make ugali on national television, the reaction shamed me even more than I was already ashamed.”

Her mom and dad appear to approve of her ugali-making skills, but we can’t know for sure. Kenyans are overjoyed that she will now eat proper ugali even while away. I still want to taste it for myself, so Lupita, make it happen.

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Michael Olunga shining in Sweden

Harambee Stars forward Michael Olunga has scored seven goals in the last seven games for his Swedish team, Djurgården IF. I watched him train with the Stockholm-based side last Wednesday and was impressed by how far the 22-year-old had come.

He had a great season last year with Gor Mahia and if his appearances in the Swedish Allsvenskan so far are anything to go by, he is going straight to the top.

After the team fell out and hit the showers, coach Mark Dempsey spent more time working with Olunga on his “finishing” or scoring goals. It paid off on Sunday when he scored two of the team’s three goals in its 3-1 defeat of league leaders Malmo.

“I know there are a lot of young Kenyans who look up to me and I can’t let them down,” he had said after practice. The “football engineer” works out, watches what he eats and has the discipline of a monk despite his relative young age.