When I was a small boy my dad would normally approach his house and home with quite some trepidation because my welcome could consist chiefly of demanding to be carried on his shoulders. No amount of persuasion, intimidation or corruption (in the form of sweets and assorted confectionery) would induce me to change my mode of welcome.
While perched up there, looking smugly down at the world, my father would impart assorted gems of wisdom to his son, one of which was:
Each and every one of us, as we grow tend to go through the following stages:
- Dad knows everything
- Dad knows almost everything
- Dad knows many things
- Dad knows one or two things
- Dad knows nothing
- Maybe Dad does know one or two things
- Actually Dad knows many things
- Dad knows everything
Unlike most people I arrived speedily at No 8, even before I broke my voice. However to this day I’m not entirely sure I believe that particular statement because among us live a certain breed of people that negate in totality what my beloved Dad said.
As you drive or for that matter, walk down Parliament Road towards Haile Selassie Avenue, to your right you will see one of Africa’s biggest eyesores – the Parliament of Kenya. Found within the confines of its walls are 250 odd creatures who purportedly work for their daily bread, despite clear evidence of a chronic and debilitating aversion to honest toil.
These are called Members Of Parliament, or, as Wenceslas, a friend of mine who hails from Western Kenya tells me, ”Masters Of Pullshit”.
For their efforts (and I use that word with careless abandon), they take home between 500,000 and 2,000,000 shillings a month. Not only do they defy what my father told me, they also cast stones against the substance of some of Newton’s laws, chiefly the one that talks about for each action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Despite spirited defences from the fruit of their loins few Kenyans are able, despite spirited efforts, to differentiate an MP from a pile of powdered water, an oven constructed entirely of butter and a waterproof sieve. Most people I know regard MPs with the same regard as the British Immigration now regard one Christopher Ndarathi Murungaru.
If tables are turned and animals begin to test their products on human beings it is no secret we are going to volunteer every last one of our Members of Parliament to go first.
Judging from the array of specimens at our disposal, entry into the exclusive club that is the Kenyan parliament is childishly simple. Management does not seem to reserve the right of admission. To be a Kenyan MP you need to meet the following basic qualifications
- Opposable thumbs
- Binocular vision
- Generally bipedal motion
- 1 (one) vertebra or backbone
- Legislators rank from PhD, M SC, B Sc right down to SMS, H20, WTF. Fleeting contact, if any, with education is acceptable
- Flawless gutter vocabulary. You never know – one day you just might be El Presidente
- Preference of the inertia of rest over that of motion
It is not necessary for your family history to be known. As a matter of fact, most of your fellow MPs will, with great enthusiasm and energy, take great lengths to question your parentage in public.
They will spend days and days and days flying around the country at my expense (my sweat is paying for Fokkers and Mercedeses that chauffeur them around, as well as hotel bills of 5,6 and 7 star restaurants and hotels they use to blunt the keener edges of their hunger) apparently eating bananas and oranges on public television.
The fact that between the quarter century of them they have only passed four bills in three years, Rasputin himself could not convince anyone that they do anything remotely like working. And now that ministers are eating bananas and oranges in all corners of the country, who is doing the damn work?
But on retrospect Dad must have been right. It surely takes superhuman effort to do absolutely nothing but increase your girth for five consecutive years, without passing go or collecting 200£…
PIC OF THE DAY
An elected leader at work
AOB
I am considering taking a break from blogging …
ABBA – Chiquitita