The Double Tongued Deaf

-






 By Kevin Kogo

We slept with water cannons cruising through our estates and tear gas canisters flying over our apartments.

We heard the wails of massacre and blasts of the oppressors into the dead of night. We woke up to a timeline of gory images, 'Free so & so' hashtags, plus more bodies at the city mortuary.

We quietly walked to work, kicking bullet casings and stepping over blood on the pavements, to meet fat apathetic bosses who dared question us about where we were yesterday.

We are still staring at computer screens with black eyes and antagonized brains when the president gives a 30-minute press briefing saying only two words: "FUCK YOU."

William Ruto - the devil we knew - has turned out to be a villain beyond any phrase. A deaf man with a twisted, reverse loyalty to his political friends, he has just hijacked this whole thing to dilute the self-serving cause. Honestly, WTF!

Onesmus Kipchumba Murkomen, a flamboyant lawyer who wears a belt that switches sides and costs 50,000, is back at the oval table. In 22 months, he has advanced his estates and businesses by an unimaginable amount, built mansions, helicopter landing zones, a 4km tarmac stretch to his Cherangani home, and bought a 2.6 million Rolex Yacht-Master.

Then there is Oparanya, a man who seems to have a penchant for being a minister in 'nusu mkate' governments. For 10 years, he hid behind Kakamega's huge revenue collection to paint himself as an agent of development. Now facing a 132 billion graft case, he's been nominated as a CS.

There's Joho the wheeler-dealer, who spent 10 years siphoning Mombasa and turning it into a harbor zone for the most crooked businessmen in the world. A man who isn't camera-shy and exhibits the highest levels of opulence and extravagance (the same shit that got Nairobi burning in the first place).

John Mbadi, who allegedly had an affair with a female blogger in the Parliament lavatories, has been running around all weekend calling Gen Z anarchists.

So, bear with me when I ask, "WTF!!"

Ruto is a legend when it comes to speaking out of both sides of his mouth. He talks about fighting corruption and then proceeds to enable it. He paints Uhuru's government as a failure because of Raila, then goes to bed with him in under two years. He talks of national unity and then nominates unqualified crooks to his cabinet. He bans harambees and then participates in them. He builds churches and destroys the children of others. He should know that his quick-witted tongue that got him the presidency is about to choke him.

They have pushed us to the wall and they are still pushing, expecting us to dissolve into the wall. We won't. We will fight with our voice boxes, nails, teeth, and spit. We will die at the foot of that wall, but we will never dissolve.

The days of bullets, tear gas, and cannons are coming to an end. Soon, only three words will matter: the guillotine, the heads, the people...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

DRIFT

-
Image
  I never meant to lose her,  but somewhere along the way, I did  she sat across from me,  her smile soft, waiting for something  I kissed her cheek like I always did,  the gesture was there,  but I wasn't.  Not really.  My mind was elsewhere, cluttered, distant,  trapped in a thousand thoughts I couldn't untangle.  She asked about my day, and I gave her an answer that sounded like words,  but felt like nothing.  I could see her waiting, searching my eyes for something real.  But I couldn't find it.  I couldn't find myself.  I wanted to reach to her, to pull her closer.  Her eyes so full of hope, so full of love,  were starting to look like they were seeing through me, not to me.  I wanted to hold her,  but I couldn't even hold to my own thoughts.  When my phone buzzed, I glanced at it without thinking.  I saw her reaction in the corner of my eye, a glimpse of disappointment, ma...
Read more

Silence is Betrayal

-
Image
  By Kevin Kogo Silence Is Betrayal.   To know, to see, to comprehend the grotesque injustice the state and its machinery inflict upon its own citizens and still choose the cowardice of fence-sitting is to admit that your education, however expensive, has rotted into nothing. You are a collaborator in your own oppression.   A young man—a father, a husband, the only son of an aging parent—was torn from his humble home 400 kilometers away. Dragged onto a bodaboda, hurled into unmarked Subaru, beaten, tortured for hours, and finally strangled to death. But the monsters weren’t done. They paraded his grieving father—exhausted from a night-long journey—onto a cold bench at Central Police Station, left him to wither for hours, then spat in his face with a lie: "Your son banged his head on a wall killing himself ."  Albert Ojwang’s death didn’t just break the camel’s back—it shattered our faith in this system. We were the obedient ones. The ones who marched with f...
Read more