KAIKAI’S KICKER: From Mackenzie to Arsenal, a week of cruel 'character development' for Kenyans

On my kicker tonight, I have neither the will nor energy to kick. You see, the last few days have been extremely tough for Kenyans. Just take a moment to imagine the rollercoaster of clashing emotions that we go through collectively as a nation and you would understand that this is no night to kick about, even less kick any fellow Kenyan.

It has been tough. Or as we like putting it in Kenyan slang, vitu ni hard! As we speak at this hour, Paul Mackenzie is not through with us. The property associated with him in Shakahola Malindi, is producing an endless stream of dead bodies every day! From the police to the intelligence services, the local administration to the national government, tumepigwa character development proper! With more than 100 people killed and buried secretly, Shakahola is shredding to pieces any notion of Kenya as a sophisticated modern state. Our usual exaggerated sense of self is in tatters. Kenyans died in Shakahola in a manner and at the pace the killer alone chose. On this we presume, our police did not know. Our intelligence services were clueless. Our local and national administrators too were unaware. On aggregate, Shakahola caught all levels of authority unawares.

And when they landed in typical dramatic fashion, lamentations and blame games ensued between various government agencies. “It wasn’t me” became “I wasn’t there”; and it quickly became “zima taa!” – a sudden blocking of media cameras that broke the story in the first place. Then rhetorically, Shakahola was declared a crime scene – Yes, sounds just a bit more useful as declaring there is water in the nearby Indian Ocean! Disturbed area was more accurate, if only expanded to also include our collective state of mind as a country. Disturbed, we should admit, we are!

Just how much can one national mind take, all in one week? Remember before Shakahola struck we were patiently and innocently waiting for the unga maize meal prices to drop to at least Ksh.150… we were just minding our own business coping with our erratic economy and particularly the spiking cost of living… we were even innocently following the on-and off- seven aside bipartisan tournament that is supposed to fix our election management challenges and other problems, I presume. Then there is this unresolved issue of fellow Kenyans drinking the stars out of their lives… you can smell the alcohol fumes; we were and still are trying to fix that – all in the same week.

And as if not enough, another of our inexplicable foreign obsessions struck yester-night. You see, English Premier League side Arsenal enjoys a great following in Kenya; I dare say a greater following than any national course I know. And so last night, the 4-1 defeat to Manchester City not only piled misery on a sizeable chunk of the population but also through a cruel paradox placed Kenya and Arsenal at par on the table of the league of the ideal.
Mackenzie to Arsenal… tumepigwa character development proper!

That is my kicker.