Quick reads with Kiruri Kamau

Why Mtukufu abandoned the “Project”

Jaramogi, Agwambo’s dear departed dad, wrote a bad tempered book called Not Yet Uhuru immediately after independence. In the book the then vice president said many things which made Project’s dad Jomo, who was then president, very angry.

In his sore displeasure Jomo cashiered Jaramogi and vowed he would make sure that he would never occupy the Big House on the Hill after he is gone to be with his ancestors.

In the book Jaramogi also said that Daniel arap Moi was like a giraffe which could see very far because the Good Lord gave it a long neck. That must be true because Daniel, against the tide of a spirited campaign to derail him, ended up at the big House and (mis)ruled us for 24 long years

His sight must have started failing because when he wanted to retire to Sacho to look after his goats he decided to pass fimbo ya nyayo to Uhuru. Kenyans could see what he couldn’t see and would not let him and that is how Emilio ended at the Hill.

Even then Uhuru continued with the delusion that he was still Mtukufu’s project but the old man has of course moved on and has now adopted Emilio as his Project. “Now, why would he want to do that” a distraught Uhuru was heard lamenting recently when he learnt that he had been dumped for a septuagenarian. Methinks the son of Jomo was dumped because Mutkufu considers he has been keeping wrong company lately and Mtukufu doesn’t like people who keep bad company.

Alternatively, Mtukufu dumped Uhuru for Emilio because he needed an old man with whom he could talk old men’s things with. But I am persuaded that he was dumped for the simple reason that he was no longer a viable investment. People usually trash projects when they fail.

Steadman mirror, who is the fairest of them all?
Mr. Steadman had organized a beauty contest which was a dress rehearsal for the big one slated for December. There was Ms. Emiliano a veteran of the catwalk who also happens to be the reigning queen.

There was also Sis.Stepanie about whom it has been whispered that she has real pedigree and could easily turn tables on Emiliano and win the real thing at the end of the year. In past dress rehearsals she has stunned the judges with her striking figure and the way she grooms her hair, sometimes being voted the fairest of them. Mostly, though, she comes a close runner up to Emiliano. Her showing at the catwalk is perhaps one of thereason she has been walking with a spring in her stride.

Then there is Miss Tractor. She is a perennial contestant but doesn’t like the catwalk for some reason. Some say she is averse to strutting her stuff on the catwalk because she knows she could never possibly hope to match Emiliano or Sis. Stepanie’s looks. She is however on record as saying that it is not the catwalk she doesn’t like; it is Sis Stepanie because of the way she walks as if she thinks she is the only stunner.

There were others also but they were eliminated during the preliminaries. Miss Freedom was eliminated because she kept insisting that she had to have one Daniel Mtukufu to chaperon her onto the catwalk but that would have gone against the rules of the pageant.

Miss Rutan and another Miss Substonia were also there but not much can be said about them for now. And do you know what the verdict of the mirror was? That Emiliano, as expected, is still the fairest of them all but that Miss Tractor was now fairer than Sis Stepanie.

That doesn’t sound right but then beauty is in the eyes of…the mirror.

saistosaurus messes Emilio’s nice flower garden
Emilio’s nice flower garden is withering but then somebody’s orange orchard is wilting too. Emilio’s flower garden was doing very well before dinosaurs came crawling from the past. A species called saitosaurus which used to be rampant in the notorious Nyayo era was thought to be extinct.

After the end of the great golden harvest of the 90s, it persisted for a while but after the war of the fruits it was thought to have disappeared for ever never to be heard again. Then just when Emilio’s flower garden appeared to be thriving so well, out crawled the saitosaurus from the woodwork. The dinosaur said it had planted the seeds that brought forth the flowers before it ducked under when enemies of progress started a malicious rumour that the dinosaur was a gold digger which went around carrying the precious stones in golden bags (which were provided by one Bro. Paul Kamlesh).

saitosaurus said it wanted its flower garden back which by then was being taken care by a medicine man called Kituyi. A karumesaurus, a stubborn dinosaur which refused to die out like the others, agreed. It had planted the seeds of the flower garden when it appeared like the rainbow dream they had all shared was about to be killed by a woman called Mama Rainbow, a collector of trophies.

You would think that Maina Kamanda would be sympathetic to dinosaurs which are trying to make a comeback but that is not the case. He announced last week that he will no longer contribute to the upkeep of the flower garden. Can’t blame him. Emilio’s nice flower garden seems to have turned into Jurassic Park.

It’s a hammer, I mean, hummer
Last week there was a talk of Agwambo’s hammer everywhere. Hammer? Yes, hammer, the wags confirmed to the curious. Tinga had imported a hammer from US of A (because the handles of those we import from China keep breaking) with which to pummel his fellow ODM pretenders to the Big House.

After decimating them (especially Bro. Steve kalonzo whom he would make sure would never enter another presidential beauty pageant), he will eventually use the mallet to chase Emilio out of the Big House.

Actually it is a Hummer, a car, not a mallet. Agwambo had gone to America recently to visit senator Barrack Obama, our very own son who has become a ‘celeb’ in Hollywood because he is ever so tall and handsome. Celebs in Hollywood ride around in Hummers and Cardillacs not in matatus and so Barrack must have been riding in one.

Barrack, like Agwambo, wants to be president (to succeed Dubya not Emilio) so if he was riding a Hummer he must have looked quite presidential in it because Agwambo asked how he could get one for himself to use as Railamobile when he kicks Emilio form the Hill. Somebody promptly gave him an old one that was clogging his garage.

Now, Kalembe Ndile, green with envy, says that Agwambo should hand the Hummer to the Speaker of the National Assembly because they recently passed a law which says only Francis Ole Kaparo is allowed to drive a Hummer. Well, that can’t be true because I hear Dennis Oliech has one and so does William Kabogo of Juja.

But if Kaparo wants it, it is stuck somewhere in the mud in the hills of Marakwet. He had taken it for a test ride before he attempts the Hill but did I hear somebody say one should not look a gift horse in the mouth? Well, it is a Hummer, not a horse.

Would they pay Aaron millions just to catch fish?
The other day I saw Justice Aaron Ringera on television jogging on the dance floor. Everybody else around him was dancing which can only mean either of two things.

Possibility number one: Aaron had strayed into the dance floor on his way to an aerobics class but I doubt that was the care because he was wearing a really nice suit and it was not a jogging suit.

Possibility number two is more plausible. Aaron has never been to a dance floor before and was confused about what he was supposed to do but then he seems to be confused about other things too. For example he sounded muddled about his job description as the director of KACC.

When he was done with jogging, Aaron sat down for a glass of something before getting up to address those who had been dancing. “Soon the Ndirector will m’be catching Mbig fish, small fish, fat fish and thin fish”, he announced to a confused audience before he strode back to the dance floor to continue with his jogging.

Many people do fishing. Some do it for sport, others do it as a hobby, those at the lakeside do it because Ugali needs mbuta to go down but Aaron was employed as a ghost buster (to chase and catch those Anglo Leasing spooks who spirited money from the treasury, naughty things).

Granted I have never seen his letter of appointment and job description but I doubt it says:

Job title: Ndirector of fishing.

Job description: To catch big fish, small fish, fat fish and thin fish.

They wouldn’t give him two and a half million shilling just to catch fish of whatever description, or would they?

Why deny a sleeping dog sleep?
Do you ever wonder what Kiraitu Murungi does with all the energy he used to expend hollering at real or imagined enemies before he had that ignominious fall from grace?

You might never know it for his silence, but he runs the ministry of Energy. He did not utter a word when the Kenya Power and Lighting company employees threw juvenile tantrums recently but that is what he does since Emilio picked him and dusted him from the dustbin he had thrown him.

He had been cashiered because he had allowed power to go to his head and had problems controlling what issued from his mouth but these days he is the very essence of humility, the epitome of reason in a profession with no rhyme nor reason (I mean politics not law although the difference is the same). Which only goes to prove that salvation is always nigh for the penitent.

Emilio is not yet convinced Chris Murungaru has reformed enough not to backslide into hubris but Chris, too, has become a voice of reason, no sweat.

House (of Babel) Speaker Francis Ole Kaparo seems to be hopelessly headed in the opposite direction though. One time it was thought he had found the truth. He woke up one day and announced to the whole world that he had a revelation that Members of Parliament were an irredeemable, slothful and avaricious lot, but already knew that. Now he has rediscovered that MPs might slothfully sleep in the house once in a while but that is because there is nothing else to do when sleep overwhelms them, and everybody should know that. In fact, adds Mheshimiwa Maoka Maore of Ntonyiri, it would be unethical not to sleep when one’s eyes droop. Well, let the sleeping dogs lie.