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Abigail Arunga: Dear Kenyan, congrats on making it this far! Well, almost …

Police brutality protest in Mathare

Members of the public during a protest in Mathare Slum, Nairobi, against police killings and brutality, June 8, 2020.

Photo credit: Evans Habil | Nation Media Group

Dear Kenyan citizen,

Congratulations. You have now reached the last month of 2020. If you have avoided getting killed by the police or your government, congratulations once more, please step to the right.

If either of the above has happened to you, kindly remember to fill in your name in the ghost voter registry section, filed under Next Election. Go on, keep it moving – no, there won't be a statue to commemorate your service, perhaps an article or two as we wait for the hubbub to die down, or distract you with Huduma Namba.

All right, those of you still here, kindly divide into two groups - those who have had Covid-19 and those who do not.

I am looking at my list here and it seems a  bit unbalanced. Are you sure you’re in the right place? Because the way you are hanging your mask on your chin would indicate that you’re supposed to be on the left.

Ok, how about those of you who were in that video at 1824? Step to the left. There we go. More accurate. You can be directed back to the public, seeing as you don’t care for your health or about our doctors dying, and neither do we.

Ok, that leaves a much smaller group. This is great: the survivors. What we have left for you are taxes, because, you see, now that we’ve cured coronavirus like Tanzania, and we are operating as a country at a tax deficit and the economy is limping (through no fault of our own, of course), we’re going to need to tax you into extinction to pay off debts that we never consulted you about.

How and why, you ask? I’m glad you asked the how part. Businesses, for example, will be paying extra taxes, regardless of whether they made profit in the last year or not. The cost of fuel will steadily rise (we really thought that drop at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic was going to ruin us) and so will the cost of food, because, you know, fuel has to be used to take the food. You understand? Of course you do.

What? You don’t have a PIN? Why? Get this man a PIN so we can track him down – him and his money! What? No food, running water or laptop for your Grade One child? Don’t worry, we’ll most definitely sort that out after your PIN.

And your voter’s card. Do you know who you’re voting for? Can I interest you in this pointless manifesto that basically ensures you will be voting along tribal lines?

Great. Everyone, I think this was a great talk, don’t forget to leave any suggestions in the suggestion box, which no one will read, in between the Kenyan Constitution that no one follows, especially concerning the two-thirds gender rule and senior State officials' opinions on how vaccines work (that was a lucky decoy for us, honestly, we couldn’t have scripted it better).

I think we can adjourn this country caucus, yes? AOBs can be discussed at the next meeting, when we’ll once again blame the youth for unemployment and spreading Covid-19.

Thanks everyone,. Take all the snacks you can. The tender has already been released to 'nani’'s uncle.