I’ll vote Alai just to farm him out

I will vote for blogger and muckraker extraordinaire, Robert Alai, for Member of County Assembly for Kileleshwa Ward. Why? In my teens, I lived a relatively colourful life and I have had oodles of character development. As a matter of fact, I have had it by the truckload. 

Case in point: My first crush ever (or was it the second?) — beautiful beyond belief, lips like peaches, low-strung and wide as a barn in certain points — was seeing another boy whose brother had a sports car. A Mitsubishi Lancer, if I recall well. And let me confess that I would have traded my teenage brain, which, in any case I rarely used, to have rides in that car.

But, in a school with a carpet of pretty girls, this one was special. She made me feel like Shaka Zulu just by the way she looked at me. I was more obedient to her than the school, the government and all the adults in my life put together. 

In those innocent days, girls were for showing off to the world, holding hands, talking to and, very rarely, perhaps stealing a chaste kiss. Girls worth having as girlfriends generally had no time for boys who asked for more. But, oh, what joy there was in that holding of hands.

So, you may wonder, why then didn’t I close the deal? Why didn’t I break the other fellow’s thin legs and put him in hospital for five years and claim the girl? Remember the carpet of pretty girls? Well, there was another...tall, wide as two barns in the same points and an entirely different user experience. 

Malicious intent

Like the hyena, I was going to trying walk two paths simultaneously. And that’s a recipe for drama and character development higher than the International Space Station, heartbreak on an hourly basis, if I were to be honest.

All the drama and suffering in my somewhat long life is nothing compared to the hurt, family breakups and loss of reputation that is caused by bloggers with huge followings but not the budgets, or inclinations, to check the facts and who, at any rate, are more interested in destroying reputations, whether fairly or unfairly, than protecting them. 

And to the average social media addict, the truth is simply what is written, not what is proven to be true. And to the blogger, what is fit to write is not what they have proven, its what they have been told, many times by sources with malicious intent, or simply made up for a fee.

It is not fun to wake up in the morning and find that millions of people have been slobbering over pictures alleged to be of you in a state of nature. Or that your escapades at Muliro Gardens had been broadcast to the entire world in great detail, and from multiple camera positions.

Felt the sting

Mr Alai is Kenya’s blogger number one. I am sure there are thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people who have felt the sting of his blogging. So you can imagine my absolute delight when I woke up today to the following text: “Hi, I am Robert Alai, ODM aspirant for MCA Kileleshwa. I am ready to SERVE. Please make me your servant. Please nominate me on Friday, April 22.” 

Mr Alai has my vote, both in the nominations and in the general election. I don’t know whether one needs to be a member of a party to participate in the nominations but I’m quite willing to register as a member of any party — Sisi Kwa Sisi, Mashinani, even Kamlesh Pattni’s — just for the opportunity to elect Mr Alai.

And I will not make trouble for those authorities for leaking my data. I had no idea Mr Alai was interested in the broad area of service. His countenance does not also easily lend itself easily to the service disciplines. But looks are deceptive — they hide many surprises — and I accept Mr Alai’s promise to serve at face value.

Why am I voting for this tormentor of the city with such enthusiasm? 

Well, I don’t care if Mr Alai serves or doesn’t. Electing him is the easiest, effortless way of decommissioning the bugger: I figured, if you are engaged in the exercise of exchanging uppercuts, roundhouses and jabs in ‘City Hole’, where will you find the time and energy to rake muck?

***

Kenya ranks 16th among the world’s leading coffee producers, behind Uganda, at eighth, and Ethiopia, fifth. Brazil still leads. 

Where I come from, growing coffee is not simple agriculture; it is a revolutionary act. Until the 1950s, only White people could grow it. In the 1950s, collaborators and pro-settler traitors were allowed to do so. The former freedom fighters only joined the sector much later and those that I knew took great pride in their trees. 

Coffee makes a man respectable, where I come from. We know how to grow it and our Arabica is good. I think I will revive my father’s trees. We may never reclaim our place at the top but, at least, we will provide the leaders, such as Vietnam, with good coffee with which to blend their pap.

[email protected]