I was driving around Nanyuki town this morning listening to some Kenny Rogers on the way.
Me and Kenny go way back to his heydays, when he was a top hits-making machine; if you loved music then, you knew Kenny and could sing along to his albums song after song.
In more than one occasion, I’ve been talking about how his songs not only tell stories, they usually tell ridiculous stories that go far beyond the normal sorrow of sad country music.
Everyone considers him the coward of the county
This is a really small town and its very easy for locals to point out failure in the powers that be. Everybody, not only knows about it, but recognizes his failure to prevent the regime from subjecting his people to intense suffering. I guess, he must be afraid of butterflies or something.
There seem to be no answer to the many queries that linger in the minds of local traders and small scale businessmen and women. Businesses have been destroyed from every corner of this little town.
Well, under his watch, the regime has raped the town’s economy. Robbing it, its former glory. Hiked taxes are rendering many people jobless.
Acquiring a business permit and other essential documents will require you to part with triple the amount that was initially being paid. The high cost of operating a business in this small town, has forced many businesses to either shift to other neighboring counties or call it quits.
What’s more interesting is the fact that a neighboring, much tinnier town is enjoying low tax benefits. Experts have said that this impartiality in tax payment is one of the key reasons that will send Tommy and his master packing.
Probably ,never to set foot again in that public funded compound that hosts the corridors of power in the small town county.
He’d never stood one single time to prove the county wrong
Of course, he has had plenty of chances to “prove the county wrong,” but he chose not to. Having been born and raised in this small town, I believe he knows that this county clearly takes seriously the ideals of manhood and non-cowardice.
He remained silent when his people were forcibly removed from their places of trade. It appears that a sudden type of strange silence had struck his mouth. As if suffering from political paralysis ,he appears unmoved by tribulations affecting the very same people who voted him in.
Though oppressing his people, he opts to enrich himself by rewarding himself with tenders through proxies and members of his family. Inadequate specialized services at the main health center, is forcing many to seek treatment in other private facilities hence leaving many families with huge medical debts to pay.
Ironically, the same unequipped facility that is meant to serve the entire county, has one of its biggest supplier as the coward of the county. Those who are not lucky enough end up loosing their loved ones.
The morgue is now the busiest place in the sprawling acreage of the medical facility. One would expect the hospital treatment wing to be busiest as opposed to a morgue.
His mama named him Tommy, the folks just called him yellow –
In this small townsfolks never run shot of nicknames. He has acquired his nicknames as a result of his political woes. When he first assumed office, everybody had high hopes in him.
Locals baptized him ‘the work man’. He made them feel that there was light at the end of the tunnel – for the moment – until he chose to fall down just like King David at the palace when he got consumed by Uriah’s wife beauty while she was taking a bath.
According to reports, the nickname has since been watered down. His influence on the ground has changed. Hard questions are still troubling his mind and those of his electorates. Millions are spent with very little to show for on various cash cow schemes.
For instance, the NHIF registration scheme has turned out to be a white elephant. Despite spending huge amounts of cash on the exercise. The local population has nothing to smile about it.
The unlucky ones continue to form the morgue statistics. If you are lucky enough to escape with your life, you will be forced to part with your hands or limbs to compensate for the huge medical bills that NHIF does not cover in other institutions.
Only when a resident who enrolled for NHIF in the small town chooses the medical facility serving the whole county as his / her primary health center, NHIF would pay the entire bills.
Imagine a situation where a family that paid its monthly NHIF contributions is forced to do a harambee to raise funds for private hospital care just because there is no specialist staff or medications in the local public health facility?
But something always told me they were reading Tommy wrong.
If you’ve been here all the time in this little town, you’re going to understand the weight behind name calling? You get the impression it’s a clearer way for local residents to show what they think of a politician!
Right now you’re going to be pretty disappointed if you believe the huge titles you are given by the electorate and overlook the funny names. It’s one of the free ways to understand the kind of picture you are projecting to the world.
From the onset, every docket which he has touched has either gone south are dilapidated.
Residents had bargained for too much than expected. They thought he would represent their interests on the table of leadership and politics. Little did they know that they were reading him the wrong way.
They had just placed their hearts in the wrong hands. As cowardly as Tommy allegedly is, it’s amazing how he forgets that the public is keenly watching his moves and time is running out.
I’m guessing he has a lot of guts to just sit there and pretend all is well and probably downplay the fact that he needs to come up with a solution to his political woes. Maybe he is scheming and getting revenge on those who have sidelined him politically (within and outside) by exposing the same regime he’s working for, to its political enemies against the will of the master.
I promised you, dad, not to do the things you’ve done. I’ll walk away from trouble when I can. Now please don’t think I’m weak, I didn’t turn the other cheek. Papa, I sure hope you understand: sometimes you got to fight when you’re a man.
That’s quite a soliloquy from Tommy, who presumably will be Tommy from now on, not Old Yellow.
Laikipia East residents can only hope and pray that Tommy gets to his senses and liberates his people from merciless hands of the little town’s regime.