A video clip has been making rounds in the social media for months allegedly showing President Uhuru Kenyatta "stuck" in traffic in Nairobi, his back window open, and street boys latching at his car desperately trying to make a pitch for roast nuts.
The location of that video is not given and there is no credit line to indicate who actually shot it and when. It was dark outside. The man seen chewing njugu (ground nuts) appears in likeness and voice to be our President. After buying the munchies and trying severally to dismiss the youths by insisting he had bought enough, he reaches to his pocket, pulls out a note of money and hands it over to the happy kids: "mugawanye" (divide), he tells them. The kids say "asante Mheshimiwa" (thank you Your Excellency) and saunter away to try their luck with other customers.
If the brief video is genuine, then Uhuru must be the first known Kenyan President to buy ground nuts from street kids.
Wasn't that a mundane show of humility? Only President Daniel Arap Moi matched that. The former President had the habit of suddenly stopping his motorcade at some fruit kiosk in the middle of nowhere, chatting nonchalantly with hawkers and buying bananas for himself and his entourage?
Humility, someone said, is not a sign of lowliness or weakness, but a virtue of strength and confidence. In the absence of humility, hubris reigns.
Let us now take the incident last week at which opposition leader Moses Wetangula was "ejected" from a Kenya Airways flight at Nairobi airport. The only demand put on Wetangula by the airline personnel was that he produces his ID to confirm his identity before boarding a flight to Mombasa. That was not an unreasonable demand given that all passengers are required to do the same. IT IS THE LAW.
The co-leader of the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) had good reasons for not having his ID card in his possession. He had inadvertently left it in a bag which was in a vehicle travelling by road to the same destination. But that was not a good excuse, enough to exempt him from the law.
What was improper was the manner in which Wetangula tried to circumvent regulations, which to me, smells of hubris. Instead of flaunting his political credentials, he should have recalled his driver to the city even if that meant delaying his travel. There was no need for chest-thumping; no need to inconvenience other passengers on that flight.
Wetangula is just an ordinary citizen. He is no longer the Minister of Government he once was to demand special treatment. In any case, even Ministers are required to comply with the law.
This habit of political leaders behaving badly is most common in our present political establishment. Not too long ago, a Kenyan MP was ejected from an airline because of being rude and cantankerous. There have been several cases where leaders have refused to be body-searched at airports citing their public positions. Because they drive specially numbered vehicles, many of them have no respect for traffic rules; others demand to be fast-tracked at queues claiming they are too busy.
Unless leaders are prepared to be humble and courteous, and are aware of their limits, one cannot expect citizens to behave any differently.
Wetangula now wants to raise the matter in Parliament. By doing so, he is confirming one thing: that he believes he's above the law.
Let him and others know that nobody is above the law in Kenya, nobody.
And that is my say.
No comments:
Post a Comment