Are we waiting for Christ or for MPs to fight cancer?
Parliament buildings in Nairobi.
Just when we were drying our tears over the loss of Bonchari MP John Oroo, news came broke that the MP for Juja Francis Waititu had also lost his battle with cancer. We already saw bad things in 2020, and 2021 should tell us what it wants.
It is not the first time an MP has died of cancer, and the memories are painfully fresh each time we travel this road.
When Ken Okoth of Kibra died in 2019, MPs swore on their sitting allowances that never again will they let cancer kill Kenyans. We now know that the seriousness we saw on their faces was just a face-paint job. They took us through another round of false emotion, and we can’t say we didn’t see it coming.
This week in Parliament, they were back with their rehearsed speeches on how they care for the plight of cancer patients, their deep empathy with the emotional burden it places on caregivers, and the economic millstone it ties on their necks. They went ahead to warn the government that if nothing is done about it, this country will be staring at a national health crisis.
I don’t know whether the driving school curriculum changed but I cannot recall seeing the image of the Kenyan parliament in the category of warning signs. You’d think there is a clause in their contract that compels them to compete on who can get the most social media likes for shouting the loudest at the government.
High-end hospital
We never see MPs warn the government whenever they increase their allowances or demand more budgetary allocation for air ambulances to evacuate them to the nearest high-end hospital whenever they bite their tongues.
They want us to believe that they love Kenyans more than Christ loves the Church, but their actions speak louder than Mike Sonko at a public rally.
These are the same people who have been building the Kamariny Stadium in their mouths, buying laptops for Standard One pupils since Jehovah Wanyonyi died, and they now want us to believe they will build a regional cancer referral centre before the second coming of Jesus.
We are here to let MPs know that Kenyans are too broke to pay attention to your incessant warnings to the government: you’re becoming a public nuisance, and if you aren’t careful, very soon we shall report you to the National Environment Management Authority for grating our ears with noise.
Covid vaccines
As other countries are busy scrambling emergency Covid vaccines for their vulnerable citizens, our MPs cannot even ask the President why the vaccines we were promised on Valentine’s Day are running late, yet Kenya is supposed to be the home of world athletics.
They are waiting for Kenyans to start falling like flies to start shedding crocodile tears, yet we pay them a handsome entertainment allowance every month for them to watch television and benchmark with the best in the world on Covid response.
They better have a breakdown of how they have been spending their entertainment money, because if we find they have been drinking instead of taking notes we will cancel those receipts and leave them to wash the urinal before being cleared to leave the bar.
This game must end. Kenyans are sick and tired of being sick amid your never-ending promissory loop.
