President’s outburst in a fit of rage: Wewe toka hapo. Kamata Huyo. Mtoe hapo mara moja
The joy of a blog like Kumekucha is the fact that there is no censorship. Self-censorship or those uncomfortable calls from State House “demanding to know why?”.
The truth is that especially now when the campaigns have started in earnest, our poor newspaper editors have to be very careful about what they put on their pages or allow to go on air. My heart goes out to them.
Let me give a very recent example of self-censorship.
During president’s Kibaki’s recent campaign trip to the Coast, there were a number of nasty incidences (unfortunately I have to censor myself because if I give them in detail I will be branded an ODM sympathizer). Anyway a few Kenyans left President Kibaki in no doubt how they intended to vote and at it finally became too much for the President and he lost his temper on camera. At one point he ordered the security personnel close to the crowd to deal with a poor mwananchi (oops I meant to say “to deal with the president’s employer”).
Part of that clip was shown on the popular KTN News Shot feature last night, except that the cameras did not show what had caused the president to lose his temper in the first place which included a large ODM placard.
Anybody who has been employed for any length of time knows the golden rule; you never, ever, ever lose your temper with your employer. The minute you do, it is just a matter of time before the sack comes. But you can be sure that it will come. Your employer will of course look for some other excuse to get rid of you, but it will all have started with your tantrum or fit of temper.
The same rule applies to any politician.
Locally President Kibaki is not the only presidential candidate to have lost it. Most Kenyans will remember the famous ODM Kenya incident in Mombasa (before the split into ODM and Hoo Ndii Eemm). Kalonzo Musyoka was booed by a section of the crowd and he promptly lost his head. Tat, tat. You just don’t do that.
ODM presidential aspirant, Raila Odinga is famous for his temper but now seems to have matured tremendously as a politician. There are days when it would not take much to spark off that famous temper, but Agwambo now seems to have become a professional politician.
Early in Raila’s campaign before Mwai Kibaki had made him so popular countrywide, in Mombasa a cheeky “employer” asked his a straight question; what was it with this circumcision thing and his seeking the presidency? There was pin drop silence at the meeting in the famous Tononoka grounds as some handlers started castigating the person who had asked the question. But Raila silenced them all and rose to the occasion beautifully by answering the question with another question. Who should be asking that question, he asked? A woman or a man? The crowd burst into prolonged laughter and the question has never been asked again to date.
There are of course still other questions about Raila’s character that will need to be addressed by his handlers. Like the time he vengefully went out of his way to block the appointment of a former colleague in LDP Shem Ochudho to the Kenya Pipeline Company. It is said he was vengeful and still upset over an earlier encounter the two had had.
Mark Anthony in that political classic from the pen of William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar was extremely angry at the funeral of Julius Caesar his friend, because of the brutal senseless way in which Caesar had been killed for such flimsy reasons. But he controlled his temper and humbly asked for permission to address the people starting with those famous but very deceiving words; “I do not come to praise Caesar but to bury him.” By the time he was done with that little speech the revolt that would thrust him into power and cause Caesar’s assassins to flee was well under way.
You just never, ever lose your temper in public at your employer. You Just don’t.
But to president Kibaki’s credit his health has never been the same after that terrible road accident in 2002 before the elections that put him in State House. The truth is that after 4 years of relaxing in State House and rarely being seen in public, he is now going through a very punishing daily schedule of campaigns. Something had to snap, he’s human after all.
