THE BOTTOM LINE : In voting, fear the politics of the tummy like leprosy

        For high-pitched Kenyans, the time to mint and print dosh’s arrived.  Do you want quick dosh? Become an opinion pollster. Thereafter, just analyse and say things with full sangfroid even if you truly know are abracadabra and quackery. It’s super easy. Use tribal science to interview tribesmen and women instead of citizenry. Add a tribal mind; and draw a tribal conclusion in predicting the tribal lord that’ll carry the day in the coming elections.

            The other day I read Gitau Warigi’s piece on how to make dosh in Kenya through forming briefcase political outfits, churches not winning a government tender. Provided that the eating season aka electioneering is close, smart nibblers are now prepared with their knives set to chop and chomp the meat UhuRuto once said it’s devouring while the challengers were drooling.

            Apart from becoming a pollster, there’s another cool way of making a killing at this point and time. Just become a political analyst answering to intimidating titles such as professor muta wa Ngumi even if you’re not but a quack sort of. To nicely mug political jobseekers, just plagiarise some terms such as the tyranny of small decisions which make people forget important things so as to latch on small and an important things. After doing so, you come to the nambers game of making your targets believe. When the tyranny of numbers was propounded to the country of Nyayo, I wondered to hear some enlightened people saying it’s somebody’s invention while it's been in academic circles even before the cheap theorist purporting to coin the words wasn’t even conceived. Even gurus such as Angello, Howard Bowen, Mackintosh and Green and others who used this term in the sixties have never claimed to formulate it.

            In applying the bootleg tyranny of nibblers, ignore all other crimes such as the sabotage of Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) Kits despite sinking taxpayers’  billions of shillings to put in place. Instead of reporting results digitally, you just propose that the IEBC goes back to pre-Adamic era by manually counting the ballots. Why use computers while they don’t lie? Once again, here you can apply the doctrine of tyranny of choice in which Fredrick Schauer argues that there must be a distinction between  rules and standards. Electoral rules must be applies to see to it that the elections and their results meet standards of free, fair, credible and meaningful elections. There should not be any hanky panky or horse trading this time around.

            I don’t want repeat the same bunkum that saw Kenya go up to smokes in 2007. However, this time , there won’t be any room for the tyranny of the numbers. Instead, I’d say; voters who are, in a sense, consumers will, as Fasolo, McClelland and Todd would put it “neglect most product information and yet make good choices, so long as either there is no conflict among the product attributes or the attributes are unequally important.” If Kenyans choose issues in lieu of personalities fighting for eating free, there won’t be any conflict. Shall they cascade to the habits of the past, conflict will surface in that, instead of standing for the interests of their nation, many’ll defend the interests of their tribes. Hence, it is upon voters to choose between the nation and the tribe.

            However, one choice is safe and progressive for Kenya, a nation. Under it, all Kenyans are united as opposed to tribe under which they're sharply divided.

            Voters need to heed this. Of all chicaneries, fear the politics of the tummy like leprosy. For, it is through this sort of politics, corrupt and venal politicians bribe voters with nonsenses such as drinks, meals,  Khangas, small amount of money, T-shirts and whatnots. Instead of buying into this fake generosity, take their stuff and ask them what they’re buying and how they made their dosh. Voter oh voter, it’ll be great.

            By the look of things, personalities seem to outweigh issues. Here’s where the Francis Nyenze thing comes in. many’ll like to see one of theirs been anointed and become a tenant in ikulu. Eish!  What’ll the hoi polloi get by pushing one of theirs to the throne. Do they know that unga and madondo don’t know their alliances,ethnies, parties and horse trading? The lack of sanitation, clean and safe water,  reliable power and dosh in pockets don’t have brains, eyes or tribes.

Voters, these are dangerous times. Beware. What  a lying season that is!

Source: Citizen Wednesday today.