lift up your empty plates and sufurias and march on

Kenya is winning. Well at least as far as athletics is concerned. We are doing well on that end but as far as food and fuel prices are concerned, just like most of the world, we are loosing.

I went home this evening with finance minister and assistant Prime Minister Uhuru. Well, to be fair his motorcade sped past my over-priced “matatu”. His motorcade by the way consisted of two expensive fuel guzzlers. A few minutes later I saw an uninterested Uhuru announcing a 2 shilling fuel reduction on the 9 o’clock news . It got me thinking; our leaders have no idea what we are raising hell over. 

Here is why I think so, fuel prices rose by around 13 shillings and for the leaders who already spend tens of thousands of shillings on fuel every month, it meant nothing for their expenditure but a little extra pocket change they probably did not notice.  But what does the rise mean for the common mwananchi? Well, personally I’d pay about fifty shillings from home to town but now have to pay a hundred.

The effect trickles down to food prices as well and again, I highly doubt an increase in maize flour by a few shillings would hurt the mheshimiwa’s wife’s pocket. Ugali is probably not the staple food at the mheshimiwa’s house anyway. 

It is for this reason that I support Kenyans picking up their empty plates and sufurias and taking to the streets tomorrow. Perhaps this might open our leader’s eyes more. My only hope is that the demonstration does not turn into a riot as seen before. It beats the logic to protest against economical difficulty while destroying property.

Looking at Uganda I am proud of the Kenyan government. There is an adage “I might not agree with what you have to say but I shall by all means fight for your right to say it”. Museveni and the Ugandan government or whoever is in charge of banning protests in Uganda must have never heard of this adage. The Ugandan official opposition leader has for the third time in less than a week been manhandled and arrested while attempting to peacefully walk to work. Now, museveni must be trying to shatter the man’s spirit but dear sir, the more attention and resistance you give Besigye, the more you make his plight relevant. Doesn’t this fellow have advisers? 

All in all it is good show of leadership on Besigye’s side. It’s absurd for a government to continuously ignore its people’s cries. Its more absurd for the same government to allegedly spend an equivalent of ksh.60  billion on fighter jets to prepare for heaven knows what war while its people bear with sky-rocketing inflation rates.

I would like to see any of our leaders walk from Karen or whatever leafy suburb they live in to the city. After all, the IDP’s did almost 140 kilometers to come plead their very important case and none of the politicians came to their rescue.