Boniface Mwangi we are on to you…. 

So today I was walking past town hurrying to catch a bus at Kencom stage, if you know 4W route you’d understand my haste. As I crossed over Moi avenue from our ancient Kenya National Archives building onto Kencom, I froze for a moment. Not due to the pretty Nairobi ladies crossing alongside me, not even due to the crazy cars dotting our roads, ok maybe a little. It was Boniface Mwangi, stalled in this very old Mitsubishi SUV, KA… sth plates.

You see it’s a Sunday and as is custom in our nation today is a day where: firstly the faithful visit their churches, to faithfully execute their mandate as Christians and secondly and more fun a day to spend quality time with family, after a long week of busy schedules, deadlines and pursuing money. We all sit back and enjoy the fruits of our labour with family. Here’s where the lines are drawn, between the haves and the have nots, where some of us prefer to fly to the white Malindi beaches for the weekend and some resign to a simple 2kg nyamachoma treat from their local
In our all too familiar fashion, our ‘Waheshimiwa’ have always claimed the former status, going to as far as globe trotting for holidays. We, the common mwananchi, have been left to enjoy the joys that come with a humble home. This has particularly developed within me a certain disgust to our crop of leaders, with their fuel guzzlers and pot bellies. I find myself hating by default, bet it’s brain memory, you know like the much famed muscle memory.

So here I am in an election year, 2017, actively participating in political debates, my fury rising and dropping with the happenings in parliament, getting worked up by the apparent lack of quality leaders and the few available overwhelmed by the rest. Theft dotting our national and county governments alike. Leaders getting discredited in one way or another. In these murky political landscape, I stand there bazing at one of my social justice heroes, Biniface Mwangi. An aspiring Mp for Starehe constituency, everything about him is right. He fights for truth, fights for justice, organizes protests against leaders passing uninclusive laws and runs a youth empowerment program.

This all seems ok and great, but before I smile and raise my hand and wave at this future Mp, I would like to inform him of something; that most of our padt and current politicians started off just as he is doing, humble with right until the sit within the august house, and all changes. Suddenly the chaperone of the people turns into the proverbial fox feeding on her charges. All good, well meaning individuals turn sour, unapologetically, too much so that the few that perform catch the public eye. Seems as if the seat is cursed a last resort of the white colonial masters before they gathered their belongings and took off to their countries.

Our new entrants in the political arena, remember where you come from, the faith you carry with you, the wave you ride. Be wary of the evil that infects those who seat in that house, those we call leaders and seem to own the title a little bit too much. Those who turn and steal our property shamelessly. To Boniface and the new comers, congratulations on the courage hope you make change and don’t thrust us in another 30years of enduring financial scandals and economic stagnation.

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