Politics being driven by power and money is the order of the day in many parts of the world. Kenya is not uniquely different when it come to this and as political temperatures keep escalating as we approach 2017 elections, political giants and business big wigs have continued to flock the race. The gubernatorial posts across the country seems to attract most of these moguls. Kiambu county has already received a handful of them. They are all wealthy, but they all do not share the same temperament or prepotency.
I sought the audience of one Kiambu gubernatorial aspirant Mr. John Mugwe who is facing Ferdinad Waititu and a few others with hopes to replace the incumbent Kiambu governor William Kabogo. Mugwe has quite an impressive resume. He boasts of an upper 2nd class honors degree in Electrical engineering from UON, Masters in Space Engineering from ISU university in France, worked in United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Norway and Kenya in a project covering 16 countries from Cuba, Bolivia, Nepal, Mozambique, is the treasurer for a community water project that has a turnover of over 11 million a year….and the list is endless including being the chairman of an organization that provides free high school education. But that’s not what Kiambu people have voted for in the past if voting pattern is anything to go by. So I asked him what he thinks about people not looking at credentials and ability to deliver, but opt for handouts and famed characters and below was his detailed answer.
“They tell me John Mugwe, stop posting on FB, have somebody do it for you. You will be too ordinary that people will not take you seriously and vote for you. Get yourself a driver, stop taking tea at roadside hotels. Be mysterious” He said citing influence from public to quit being ”too humble” while he has the financial capacity.
He went ahead to bring to light the colonial mentality that has stuck in people’s minds in the story highlighted below:
How our minds got colonized
”During colonialism, the Mzungu ( who our people called Bwana) used to have a big house mostly on a hill.
The workers, who no matter how old, the Mzungu used to call “boy” used to work and be fed by the Mzungu.
Mzungu was like a God. Greeting him by hand was unheard of.
Mzungu never joked with the Africans. His children never mixed with native children.
While the Mzungu could ride horses and cars, the native was to clean them and in the evening the native would link up with the other native from the other Mzungu and discuss.
“My Mzungu has a better house than yours” one would say.
“No, mine has two horses which will win the race” another native would say
After sometime, they would fight over which Mzungu was richer, better, etc than the other.
Fast forward to today.
We elect leaders because they live in huge palaces. They drive huge cars with tint followed by chase cars.
Our people talking in homes can only be amazed by so and so will defeat the other because of money, great vehicles, money.
However when lights go off in the night, the fellows go to bed not knowing where the next meal would be.
Then one day, Kimathi decided to fight so that the native would get his dignity back.
Native homeguards went around homes saying
“Kimathi hawesmake”
A certain native , a Njoroge, betrayed Kimathi. Kimathi was captured and hanged.
The native still worships the African Mzungu!
Never mind that Mzungu had stolen from them and used their land to build his wealth. Taking over their lands and paying peanuts for labour.
This is the mentality we are fighting, and it’s a tough fight of enlightening the public and salvaging them from today’s ”Black Mzungu”. We are winning, and people have learned the hard way especially in Kiambu ” He told Jamhuri News
-By Thuothuo Anthony- Jamhuri News reporter