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SC is an acronym for the
Head of State Commendation. It is recognition awarded by the President of Kenya
as reverence for outstanding or distinguished services rendered to the nation by
individuals in various facets of society. This is ostensibly on advice of a
National Honours and Awards Committee in the President’s office. No less the
current president is on record offering profuse yet pedestrian lamentations
about corruption cartels even he is powerless to act on in this same office.
However, this may be a minor blip not meant to debase the integrity of this
committee. Memories of the Greek legend Sisyphus who was condemned to a
bog-standard life of pushing a boulder uphill only to watch it without ceremony
do the downhill slalom comes to mind.
The day was the 12th
of December 2017. It is the Independence Day for the Republic of Kenya,
popularly known as Jamhuri day. Chronologically, this one was our 54th.
This is quintessentially supposed to be the most important day in the Kenyan
national calendar, but events this year have only to be confined to the nadirs
of living memory. This year the day had many peculiarities, not less the low
turn-out of Kenyans many who feel they may not have gained anything from this
independence. Historically, our forefathers were in the struggle for
independence with the aim to get out of Poverty, Illiteracy and disease which
they felt had been let rife on them thanks to foreign occupation. Their land
was seized and all factors of commerce were delivered to them only in a
trickle. To most intents and purposes these aims have not been achieved. Many
Kenyans feel disenfranchised because their voices had been doused electorally
by the announcement of a not so popular incumbent as their president for a
fresh mandate. I shall not pay credence to the absurdity that occurred on the
26th October as I risk engaging in an unavailing discourse on a
nullity. I would rather discuss King Julien day or fly a kite!
Electoral fatigue had
seared every muscle and sinew of the populace of the Republic. Many enterprises
had been pushed to the limits of existence by the politicking. Many could not
let go the chance to take their much deserved rest. In recent times they have
had to deal with innumerable upheavals. What with the weekly burying of
kinsmen, innocent victims of disproportionate, callous and extrajudicial
execution by the same Police service tasked with their protection? For the
survivors teargas, burning tyres and barricaded motorways had become the
staple. Also the opposition leader; who many feel was the real victor in the
Electoral race was busy threatening to either constitutionally or otherwise
swear himself into power, the 5th President of Kenya. To add to that
unemployment which has left many disillusioned, vulnerable, restless and
destitute. Everything that could go wrong just obeyed Murphy’s Law to add
impetus to the simmering cauldron that was the careening of this day into the
deeper echelons of the absurd.
Everything that I
have described above pales in comparison to the spectacle that transpired on
the material day. Everything was tailored to script and all that had to be pretentiously
applauded was. Then came the time for the award of the Head of State Commendations
where everything tapered to a hot mess. Shock and consternation is the only
emotion that greeted anyone who awaited acts of valour, patriotism and
enterprise to be rewarded. We had deserving candidates like Fatuma Zarika and
Joshua Oigara who were awarded this high honour based on great achievement and
celebration of merit. We cheered those to no end. Those are surely not the
grouse of this piece.
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| President Uhuru Kenyatta in shock at the list presented before him |
The raison d’etre of
this post was the list of awardees rife with undeserving characters who I will not
denigrate this piece by mentioning in name. Every cadre of the abysmal was
exalted to high heavens. For all I could gather, that list reeked of the acrid
stench of ethnic chauvinism. An inordinate number of individuals were feted for
merely just being in politically correct tribal groupings at the right time.
Who really chose where they were to be born anyway? Characters whose only claim
to fame is preaching for ‘peace’ without Truth and Justice were cream of the
crop. Others were people who suffer from incorrigible amnesia of the facts of
nationhood. Hypocritical, conniving and chameleonistic men and women were
commemorated as the true sons of our soil. Not to forget characters who vociferously
in text dabbled in the mighty abomination of attempting to publicly embarrass
the few venerable practitioners of the legal profession in the nation,
possessing the grit of heart and mind to do what is right even against the grain
of insurmountable opposition from the incumbency. We adjudged to be honest the
very intellectual dishonesty that is the scourge of this nation. Others were
feted for being parochial ideologues and sycophants basically regurgitating the
will of the ruling coalition whether to the detriment of Kenya or not. On that fateful
afternoon, we reveled in mediocrity and apotheosized primitive accumulation of wealth
without enterprise. We in negative faith worshiped at the altar of nihilistic
vanity. We virtually etched in marble the chronicles of a guy who was nursing a
hangover on the polling queue while stuffing his face silly with a puree of
maize and beans. Collectively, we profaned the name of the Lord by apportioning
honour to religious leaders who preach anything else but the authentic gospel
of Jesus Christ. We reviled heroism choosing to carouse the cowardice if not
indignity of morally reprehensible characters. We chastised professionalism
choosing to proffer song and dance to the agents of favouritism, tribalism and
malice. We built a shrine in honour of injustice and cremated our national
values, pilfering those ashes to the four winds of the earth. We were so lost
in raucous cheer of those who sharpened their weapons to protect cabals &
cartels that suckle the life-blood of this country rather than trumpet the
feats of unsung heroes; teachers who whet the minds that build commerce and
industry. We castigated service all the while fanning the self-effacing flame
that is the grandeur of the big-man syndrome. It was a great dishonor to our
heritage of splendour to accord any kind of honour to such undeserving
characters.
I have so many
questions which may not all get asked in the bounds of this piece:
1.
Where in
this scheme was the award for the brave, distinguished and conscientious Kenyan
lady Roselyn Akombe who did the unheralded singularity in Kenyan public life?
She unflinchingly resigned from a constitutional commission in neglect of
attractive perks and all, an oddity in Kenya.
2.
What award was given to the young ladies who
selflessly gave up their own lives in a heart-rending attempt to save their
colleagues from the inferno that engulfed the dormitories at Moi Girls High
School, Nairobi?
3.
Were the
Malkia Strikers feted?
4.
Where was
the award to the faceless majority who braved hunger, cold, snakes, hyenas,
tribal militia to turn up at the polling stations twice in 60 days?
5.
Where was
post-humous pride and honour for the unflinching souls that defied police
bullets to protest the malaise that we all admit is the undoing of our
electoral system?
6.
Where was
the award appropriated to the Chief Justice and three of his Supreme court
colleagues who in good conscience refused to uphold the unverifiable and
totally entangled if not nebulous results of a bungled poll?
7.
Now that
we were celebrating the bizarre; where was one for the slay-queen of the year, the
bank tunnel-diggers, abominable narco-preneurs and all the teeming shisha-heads?
8.
Where
were awards for techie Kennedy Kachwanya, The No-chills-blog guy or Cyprian
Nyakundi guys who blog on issues of importance to the down-trodden proletariat?
9.
Have Baimungi
M’ Marete and General Chui ever been singled out to be celebrated for the
sacrifices they gave to liberate this nation and afterwards calling out the
nascent government of the day for disproportionate land allocation system
post-independence? They were basically the first opposition entities this
country has known.
10. Where was an award for Miguna Miguna,
the unrelenting live-wire opposition battering ram and a voice of reason?
I could go on and on but
what will be the wisdom in that? Is the institution of the Presidency still a
symbol of Unity for this country or just a conduit to solemnize and cajole the
egos of cronies? To enjoy with partisan friends the largesse of state power
while you still have it, with limited regard to the taxpayer bank-rolling it
and all. This is a detrimental and fatal flaw in our ‘winner-takes-all’
political system. What happened was an absolute travesty of the reward scheme,
utterly incomprehensible and deemed abhorrent by any Kenyan of good faith. The
problem with such a reward proposition is that it breeds a dearth of
excellence. Laziness is labeled exemplary, responsibility is not and blame is
to be shared and thrown around like dodge ball. People will feel that the only
way to get ahead in life is by playing harlot to the ‘big man’ and hope that
the crumbs of good fortune fall from his table to their own.
There will no longer
be any need for enterprise as you will ultimately end up where you started if
you are not well-connected so to speak, a phenomenon I personally find nauseatingly
as repugnant as the worship of idols. Young men and women will no longer
cherish the value of hard work, smart investment and timely action instead
engaging in some asinine stunts in social media with the goal of attaining fame
& fortune to nobody’s benefit. Short time pecuniary gain has gained greater
traction as opposed to the toil and sacrifice of building a long-term,
sustainable and replicable system for success. The draw of composing and
performing patriotic songs will be in abasement at the altar of short-term,
money-spinning deification of mere mortals whose character is not even worth
the amplifier in the studio where those songs were recorded. People who are
steeped in virtue will be shunted aside as they watch their undignified and
feckless compatriots get ahead. Impartiality and objectivity have become
foreign attributes and the butt of jokes in the current Kenyan political
dispensation; which to all patriots is a shame, testament to the deplorable
depths we have allowed ourselves to sink as a society.
You must have been
embarrassed silly and thought you were watching a cringe-worthy horror movie. The
Black, Red, White and Green lights of our flag were nullified by the day-long
eclipse of the bilge on show. Nevertheless, you live in Kenya my man.
Peculiarities and idiosyncrasies are the standard-bearer everywhere and
defiance of logic a badge of honour. Take heart my friends as here; more often
than not fact is stranger than fiction.
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