I don’t intend to schmooze my brother Joseph Ochieno even my audience or mince a word about our Shangri-Li like East African Community. First of all, pole sana ndugu for what you went through in Kenya (Monitor, August 1, 2021). So, too, I don’t mean to pride myself with feat while I know it is but a flop. To begin with, those who daydream that the EAC is a reality, be told. The thing known as EAC–––that our rulers like to sing all clangours about–––died in 1977. It’ll never be back. No miracles will resuscitate it except facing the reality. The earthlings of the EAC would like to become not the EAC but a single country–––if we indeed biz. Nevertheless, our rulers don’t want to have any of it to be precise. Theirs has always been to cling to the statehouse and the pomp thereof. They dupe us saying they’re into it while they aren’t.
We all vividly know. Our modern time African feeble and fickle states were born in 1884 in the city of Berlin, Germany at the conference that bears the same name and sins. The hyena-like colonial bigwigs of the time congregated in Berlin to brutally and carelessly divide and partition Africa under the sacrilege known as the scramble for Africa. These criminals met there to avoid fighting among themselves over us. Thus, they created an ogre that’s forced some of us to hate and kill each other under another sin of injudicious nationalism. Kenyans would kill for their nationhood. The Tanzanians too can, as well as Ugandans. Is there any actualisation and realisation of the EAC here really with this crazy nationhood the colonial monsters created for us to self-annihilate?
I’ve lived in and travelled the trio that originally founded, killed and resuscitated the EAC. I know how we disbelievingly look at each other; how we disrespect each other; above all, how we cheat each other. Kenyans think they know English more proudly than the rest. Ugandans think are the most educated compared to the rest. Tanzanians feel are more connected to Ugandans and separated from Kenyans. Kenyans view Tanzanians as uneducated, poor and gullible. Tanzanians, in return, view Kenyans as warrying tribalists. This is who we are. Living in Lavington Nairobi taught me one cardinal rule of survival against Kenyan karau or cops. Never speak Swahili when you come across them. Secondly, when you happen to talk, talk about the Kenyan Human Rights Commission, Willy Mutunga, Makau Mutua and other big querulous names since they epitomise and symbolize human rights.
My stint in Kampala at Mbaguta Road taught me that when you’re in Kempala, speak your Swahili. They’ll say “a mukombozi from Tz is in UG.” They’ll welcome you to their homes something a few Kenyans will dare do.
After briefly nagging the wananchi of the EAC, let me turn to our biggies in the upper echelons of power. In Kenya, we’ve a shaky peace presided over by tribal lords who’ll stop at nothing when it comes to aspiring to become president. Remember Post-election violence 2007/8? Remember how those in power were delivered to The Hague to end up being saved by the mafia in power for fear of being implicated? That’s who they’re after refusing to be something desirable.
In Tanzania–––I must declare my interest–––is where I was born and bred. As for they, are just wajamaa or socialists even after abandoning Ujamaa. they’re protective against any mafioso who wants to take them for a ride, especially the Kenyans they like to call mabepari or capitalists whom nobody’d trust. Politically, in Tz, anybody including sons and daughters of paupers can become president as opposed to Kenya where dynasties have a big sway.
As for UG, oh my, what’d I say? For close four decades, they’ve known one ruler whose name sounds like the number after six. Some comedian called this consistence, which happen to be a conquest enhanced by bush war, if I may say so. When’ll it come a cropper or to an end? Only the Guy upstairs knows.
Allow me to add more nuggets of wisdom. Without glossing over other issues. I cross over to Burundi. This has always been on and off vis-à-vis violent conflict. Citizens are peaceable but in stinking penury. Like their brethren in Rwanda, they’re but only three communities of which only two call the shots through butchering and disposing one another, the Hutus and Tutsis. One thing they compete with Uganda’s the number of coup d’états they’ve evidenced in the history of their independence of dependency. While Uganda boasts of four coups, Burundi boasts of six. You see. The duo are but military countries. They refer to themselves as militants and militantes.
Let me move on to the DRC and South Sudan. As we all know, the DRC’s known for its love of life and music. When DRC’s maestro Franco wanted to sooth its former dictator Joseph Desire Mobutu after falling out with him, he composed the hit papa ubiquitous. He simply chanted “happy are those who sing and dance” even if they’ve nothing to eat or are under a stinking thievish dictator. And true, the dictator kept his cool. You can treat Congolese as you like if you’re able to make them sing and dance.
Lastly, let me peek into South Sudan. These guys have suffered more than any in the EAC. Firstly, they lived under North Sudanese madness of discriminating against them that they’re Africans, Christians and animists as opposed to the black Arabs and Muslims who’ve never been accepted by true Arabs. Thus, after being pissed off, they decided to go solo in 2011. The whole world went banana with hope and joy little knowing that the thing would become a banana republic. To borrow from my friend Prof Makau Mutua, the country ever since has been bleeding to death in the hands of two warlords Salva Kiir, the clownish-looking, hat-wearing cowboy Dinka. and Riek Machar, the egotistical gap-toothed Nuer. Like a baby who refused to grow, South Sudan’s close to the status of a failed state like Somalia and Libya not to mention currently being a killing field for whoever goes there.
With such charlatans in power, characters, comportments of the earthlings and rulership, is there anyway the EAC can be actualised and realised? My foot. Count me out. pole sana again Ochieno. That’s your EAC that has refused to be.
Source: Daily Monitor today.
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