How to make millions of shillings and become a Kenyan politician (part 1)

Hi there, come in. Come in. Have a seat.

One minute as i clear this here...

Okay! hi, my name is Eugene and I shall be your consultant on how to make millions of shillings and become a top Kenyan politician. 

lets get started right away...

the 1st step is to have made  millions of shillings.

Are you there? Have you made the millions? Okay let’s go. Now it’s time to start on your journey to becoming a top Kenyan politician. At this point I know you wonder how qualified I am to be your consultant…yes? I am not. I have no qualifications whatsoever. And you too will need none to become a politician. Sure they say that soon you must have a degree to become MP, but not to worry, our good friends at parliament will shoot it down. If not we’ll buy you one from a local or international university.

Or less

We’ll get you something smart but not too obvious. Not something like law or engineering that might require you to prove yourself. We’ll get you something like a degree in Gynecology…they’ll never ask you to prove that...you see what I did there? This will set you back a million or two…you see? The millions are already coming in handy.

So degree in hand, now we pick a region to represent. At this point I know you’re thinking the place you grew up. Do not. Think of the place with the most number of your tribesmen and the least educated too. Now the place you pick depends on your age. If you are youthful (in the Kenyan sense meaning anything from 22-72 years of age) pick an urban area. In my sense youthful means at least below 45. If you are above 60, pick the most remote rural area with the best number of your uneducated tribesmen. They do not believe in young people those.

A point to note here however, is that the top area politician of the place you pick must not be very wealthy; chopper wealthy. These guys buy votes in the hundreds of millions and you do not want to compete and finish your millions before your first term in parliament now do you?

Now that we’ve got a degree and region, the next thing we need is a party. Now this point is a bit tricky. Manifesto does not matter but there are two things that are important in your choice. 1^st of all, the party must have a good following among your tribesmen. 2^nd the head of the party must be your friend or someone you can pay to ensure your nomination ticket should you loose at the party primaries. Its better that he is a friend so we can save the money we’d pay him for bribing voters. As I said, do not bother yourself too much with party manifestos and leadership, we can party hop when we get to parliament.

Millions-check

Degree-check

Region-check

Party-check

Now Its time to hit the campaign trail. You can dress in suits when going for party events but when going ‘home’ a leather or suede jacket and a casual expensive shirt is appropriate. Get a god papa hat (cow boy hat) the locals take it as a show of wealth.

See, everybody knows you need a god papa to make it in politics

Grow a pot belly and buy a walking stick too. These are important things for a ‘serious’ politician. If the region you picked is the remote kind, get a Toyota Prado. A well maintained Toyota Prado but with an older number plate. The older number plate proves to the locals that you made your money a while back and you can use this in rallies to discredit younger politicians by citing how young their plates and therefore their politics is. If yours is a more urban region, get a hummer. They love love love hummers.

In the constituency, you will need people on the ground. To popularize you and gunner you votes. First place you go to is the church. They have massive influence especially with rural women. They spread good news, and you sir, are the messiah. Attend a few Sunday services, kneel at the platform, with your hands raised to receive blessings and at the end of the service, meet the deacons and pastor at the backroom and raise your wallet to give blessings. Buy the church a few wooden benches, help them repair their water tank and contribute generously at harambees.  Generously here is relative and shouldn’t be very expensive. Just make sure to give more than the highest contributor and sooner than later, they will have no choice but to tag you ‘mheshimiwa’.

If you do this with most of the churches in the region you‘ll have secured the women’s and religious men’s vote.  Next, pick a few influential wazees in the region. Depending on how many millions you have left now, give them free t-shirts and organize a trip for them to the capital where they can see monuments and reminisce about their younger days working for Indians at textile shops and living in Kariokor or Ngara.

 Host them at a decent lodging downtown and meet them for an evening meal where you’ll give them promises of water dams and free fertilizer. On their way home ensure each one is given 1,000 shillings and a wrong phone number that they can use to contact you at any time. Give the head 10,000 shillings. They’ll sing your praises to their wives and children and at the mountain tops of the village.

That taken care of, go back to the village and deal with the youth. This should not be very difficult. Much talking is not needed here. Identify the most popular drinking joints. Focus on changaa and keg because its cheaper and rural youth have no money for beer anyway. Buy the whole stock and let them drink to their fill. No need to address them, they are not in any state to hear you anyway.

the more dunk the better

 Do this occasionally. At rallies, promise thousands of jobs. It doesn’t matter if you have a plan for them or not. They’re too busy making babies and drinking cheap liquor to follow it up. Buy a few cheap Chinese motorcycles and distribute them to the few hard working ones.  

Are you following? My hour is over now and my secretary tells me another client is waiting outside. See you next week. 

And remember, it’s your time to eat!