We’re such whiners that Uhuru is wrong if he talks, or doesn’t

President Uhuru Kenyatta approves the Health Law (Amendment) Bill, 2018 and Assumption of the Office of the County Governor Bill, 2018 at State House on May 13, 2019. When the President appears and says something, everybody gets busy trolling him and grousing that he is talking garbage. PHOTO | PSCU

What you need to know:

  • If there is one thing I saluted Mwai Kibaki for, it was for his exquisite understanding of this very Kenyan capacity for duplicity.
  • Who gave Kenyans this notion that the sky will fall down if the Head of State failed to appear at everyday public barazas to hand down gems of wisdom?

It beats me why anybody would want to be President of such a nagging country as Kenya.

A country where some very idle citizens, as one pundit put it, behave like needy cats.

From the rants on social media and TV talk shows, you would have thought a criminal cartel had broken into the Central Bank and emptied it of its cash reserves when President Uhuru Kenyatta didn’t appear in public for a week or two.

It hadn’t even occurred to me that anything was amiss until I chanced upon some very funny memes being put out by Kenyans on Twitter (KoT) about the President going AWOL. This was all coming under the hashtag #FindPresidentUhuru.

A wearisome, fast-talking activist then appeared on a weekend TV political show and breathlessly told the nation that after the “begging safari” to China, Uhuru “was spotted in Washington DC at the (Kenyan) embassy, entering through a side door”.

STATE FUNCTIONS

There were “several eyewitnesses” who saw him, she assured her viewers. Really?

From where do these talking heads make up these sort of tales? Assuming that indeed the President had “sneaked” to DC, so what?

Was there any evidence he hadn’t taken the necessary prior constitutional steps to ensure the government would function normally?

As it were, all this seemed moot because, among other things, we saw presidential appointments being made in statutory boards and in the military during the period in question.

In the end, who cares if the President was in town or away? Can we learn not to be too much of busybodies?

Actually, I had more respect for the trolls who said they didn’t give a hoot whether the President was around or was running the country from Mars.

You have your life. Deal with it. Don’t dwell too obsessively on how others are handling theirs.

BUSYBODIES

The argument that the President is the “symbol of our Kenyan nationhood” blah blah blah and as such must be all over nannying our lives is as woolly as the intrigues surrounding the Huduma Namba.

Worse, it exposes the hypocrisy that flows in the veins of this country like slime.

So, according to the online bots, we employ the President and thus he must be at our beck and call?

He can’t have a life of his own or be given latitude to develop his own style of governing?

We must demand to see him every day to assure ourselves there is no so-called power vacuum in the government?

It reminds me of somebody I know who, upon being employed as a restaurant manager, got spooked when the owner would show up and hang around the manager’s office the whole day.

COAT OF ARMS

Perhaps the President should be dropping by at our homes regularly so that we touch his face, just to make sure he is breathing? Honestly, we like behaving like spoiled brats.

I guess one would only obsess as to the whereabouts of somebody with that level of neurosis if that somebody was the one who pays your rent, and the upkeep.

Nay, if your whole existence depended on him. Why are we so cartoonishly narcissistic? Petty, even? Ok, I know much of it is just pretence.

To look for an excuse to whine, which has become a uniquely Kenyan pastime. We have become a nation of cry babies.

Kenya, the Land of Unending Lamentations – so should read the official Coat of Arms.

Trouble is, when the President appears and says something, everybody gets busy trolling him and grousing that he is talking garbage.

KIBAKI STYLE

If there is one thing I saluted Mwai Kibaki for, it was for his exquisite understanding of this very Kenyan capacity for duplicity.

And so, he rarely spoke. There was a lot of sense to his favourite putdown – Pumbavu.

Can you imagine what Americans would give to have their current President shut his trap, and deactivate those awful tweets?

Who gave Kenyans this notion that the sky will fall down if the Head of State failed to appear at everyday public barazas to hand down gems of wisdom such as when farmers should prepare for the planting season, or how teachers should take their pupils through exams?

Doesn’t Nigeria’s Muhammadu Buhari stay abroad for months on end on medical leave? Has Nigeria ceased to be in his absence?

MOOD SWINGS

It’s all nonsense when you hear some Kenyans bleating about a “vacuum” when Uhuru inexplicably goes underground.

What does the Constitution, which the same people treat like Holy Writ, say about that?

Kenya is a very schizophrenic society with wild mood swings. One time we are scolding the President and telling him to shut up. When he does, we then go bananas demanding he surfaces.

Frankly, I wouldn’t give a damn about where and how the President spends his time. Or how he fashions his job.

As long as he steps up the fight against corruption. That’s where my only beef is.