KAIKAI KICKER: To Mama Ngina and all mothers; buckle up! Mtajua hamjui

On my kicker tonight, I revisit a simple question asked by former First Lady, the late Lucy Kibaki – ‘who is your mother?” We will come back to that question in a bit but first, another former first lady is in the news headlines this week.

Let me start by taking the position that former First Lady Mama Ngina Kenyatta is right, and I suspect may just get insulted for saying that. But let me press on anyway; in a rare comment on live political matters, Kenya’s first First Lady switched to motherhood mode and proclaimed that politicians who have been insulting her son President Uhuru Kenyatta over his move to support Raila Odinga to be the next president, were not raised properly. Predictably, the First Lady’s statement was greeted with more insults, especially in the social media, where special purpose harsh tags showcased the ugliest of the abuses.

But politics and insults notwithstanding, Mama Ngina Kenyatta’s substantive point should not be missed. Atop the rubble of the online abuses trending to this minute, Kenyans of sound judgment should concede three things; first, an admission must be made that like Mama Ngina suggests, there is a serious problem with the language, tone and manner of our politics today. Secondly, an admission should be made that the deterioration did not start with the ongoing Uhuru succession debate. It is much older than that. Thirdly, Kenyans including Mama Ngina should concede that on this one, no one is holier than thou and in the words of the Bible, all have fallen short of the glory.

With those three admissions and over the indignity subjected to our country’s inaugural first lady, a nation of adults must now rise up and redraw the rules of engagement. And it starts with recalling the lessons passed on to every child by their mothers. And just for the record, Mama Ngina is not the first former first lady to question the quality of upbringing of some of the subjects of their discourse. Sometime back in one of the newsrooms in this town of Nairobi, the late first lady Lucy Kibaki, may her soul rest in peace, was so enraged by the media’s coverage of her family that she walked to a media house in the dead of the night and asked a stunned journalist a simple question; “who is your mother?”

Tonight, that is a pertinent question every Kenyan politician should answer. That question again; “who is your mother?” When politicians cannot refer to each other by name and instead call each other insults and names like ‘mwizi’ and ‘kitendawili’, then they owe Kenyans the answer to the question; who is your mother? And do you remember what mothers told us about respect? Do you remember how age differences and even age sets acted as natural barriers to disrespect? If you do, just sample the tone and content of this exchange to understand why Mama Ngina and the late Lucy Kibaki had valid concerns about our country.

Our archives are full of base illustrations, but I picked the Ruto-Atwoli exchange because of its wealth of dishonour. The two are prominent leaders in their own right, fathers and even grandfathers in their families and possibly, role models of their respective admirers in politics and trade unionism. The two are also not age-mates and therefore in the strict context of African ways, they cannot exchange words in public let alone insults.

But their exchange represents the low road taken by our political discourse. And just look around both campaigns and see the quality of the emerging youthful politician. An ability to hurl abuses seems the main qualification out there.

So to Mama Ngina and all the good mothers out there, including my own, ‘buckle up.’ as those politicians would say, mtajua hamjui.

That is my kicker !