The youth want recognition and not the history of Kenya

Acknowledging the supremacy of our numbers; Honouring those who struggled to bring internet freedom to our land; Cognisant that wisdom comes with age and not hair-dye; Proud of our parents, who did not sell cows to take other cows to school and; Determined to pay them back by teaching them how to open a Facebook account; Do hereby state as follows:

That we’ve been monitoring those vying for office walk around in a manner likely to suggest they want the youth to be seen and not be heard. While we agree that the youth should help politicians exercise their eyes since they don’t get to do that at the gym, we’d like to reiterate there’s a reason God gave us a voice, and it wasn’t to sing the first stanza of our national anthem.

We have been watching those who claim to be young, even when it’s clear they’ve been quoting their footballing age. If you don’t invite us to the high table, you will be seeing the land of milk and honey only in the Bible.

We know something is tempting you to twitch your nose in dismissal of the threats you’ve just read. Before you do that, we’d love to remind you that the youth of this country are more than the amount of money in your pillow account right now. Kindly sleep over this issue before you burn your chances of getting elected next year.

Paper droppings

When we said we wanted the youth to run your campaign, we didn’t mean running after your convoy for paper droppings from your sunroof. If we wanted handouts, we know where your financiers live and can waylay them ourselves without massaging their aging egos.

We’re sorry if we still don’t understand why you were jailed for not stealing public funds or killing anyone. We’re told you wouldn’t have known that History was an optional subject in high school, because you were busy running away from those who wanted to eat your liver even though they weren’t alcoholics.

Thank you for reminding us that you fought alongside the Mau Mau, even though the only ‘Mau’ we know is the abbreviation for ‘Maureen’, and we’ve been with her at Anniversary Towers the entire week looking for you to help us fight for timely disbursement of HELB loans and to stop universities from teargassing us over fee increase.

We’re also not comfortable with our historical past, as it reminds us how the sun used to heat up our dark skins before we discovered skin-lightening creams. If you’ve been sent to destroy the dating market for us, we’ll not vote for you next year. 

We may not have fat bank accounts, but our social media accounts are more powerful than the sword. And you can’t blame us for wanting you to tell us how to make money on Tiktok and which Instagram filter will make roadside ugali look like white cake.

You won’t be told these things by those who have failed to convince the dictionary writers to redefine what it means to be a youth. If you don’t believe us, just hire archaeologists to conduct a one-day workshop on pre-historic Kenya and let your accountants count the number of young people nodding their heads during the lecture.

Once they confirm that the collective yawning by the youth during the History of Kenya lectures has nothing to do with sending signals to the World Food Programme, you’ll start to rid your inner campaign team of those applying pancake makeup to fit into the youthful narrative. Speak to the youth without cutting corners.

We would’ve stormed your campaign rallies to tell you this, but the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) is likely to ask us to show cause why the prison tailor should not take our measurements.

We’ve since chosen to stay home and remind our followers to subscribe to our YouTube channel, as we wait for you at the ballot, where you shall see bad things only.

The writer comments on topical issues; [email protected]