Open Letter to Taniel

Dear Taniel,

By Kipkenda Maimi

I have been a close Disciple of yours, a very dedicated follower of your consummate wisdom and timeless ability to foretell 100 years of Kanu's rule as you did in 2002. I dare not contradict you. Of course people didn't see what you and I have been seeing all along. That you are Kanu member number TWO, being only preceded by our father who has since gone abroad. Even the people of Tindiret forgot that you asked them once 'Ng'oo ne mii barak nebo sumeekyuuk', it was then that it dawned on all of us that above you was only one thing: ILEET itself and that you were the topmost human species in the land. Of course you know that no man can argue with 'Ilootik che amei tuum'. Furthermore, we got a revelation that, Lo! you lived at Gaa Barak Kipsengwet (those European-trained slaves of colonialists changed it to Kabarak!). Then we all agreed to see the wisdom in you and agreed that you were VERY RIGHT.

Mzee, when you said 'Kanu itatawala hii Kenya miaka mia mingi ata mia moja', people didn't also see that you meant that whoever was going to be president of Kenya had an indelible mark as a Kanu life member. Sijui hii watu kwa nini hawaguona gwombo even President Kibaki was going to rule Kenya for the next ten-some years as a Kanu life member number (THREE?) only that he didn't need to wear a red Kanu youth wing shirt or is it a Nyayo coat lapel reserved only for the Kanu elders. Nor did people see what you and I have all along known, that the man called Raila could as well be president of Kenya as a Kanu life member (Mzee I forgot to tell you that he IS a life member of New Kanu minus New) and that he didn't need the life membership card that was held by his father Jaramogi. Do you remeber, Mzee how Jaramogi called you a political giraffe when you took him on a tour to Turkwell Gorge and he was bewitched by your magic to create electricity out of some ugly water-fall?

Not that they saw that it was in reference to the fact that even after that Mr. Uhuru Kenyatta can be president as life member number RECYCLED ONE having inherited his right to primordial custodianship of the party after the previous member went abroad. These people fail to count that you only meant that Kenya needed to be ruled (not led) by Kanu life members numbers ONE to TEN (men not women) as presidents for TEN years each after which God will switch off the sun, remind that Asiisian called araap Sambu that Jehovah God is the God of Israel, has the main switch for the Sun and close the chapter on the whole universe. But don't worry Mzee, these people didn't know you would be president in the first place, either. Those others dismissed you as a passing cloud.

I remember that when Joseph JJ Kamotho was your tarumbeta, he swore that his blood always wrote the word Kanu in bold and italics and highlights and enhancements every time it dropped on the soil. Mzee, baadaye Kamotho alizunguka huko na huko an baadaye amerudi kwa mahali yake. Yote imekuwa siro gabisa. Hata hii Kijana anaitwa Ruto, Ruto kitu gani. Mzee wajana na yeye, ataenda huko na huko na baataye atajua yeye pia ni Kanu. If you give me an assignment I will teach Ruto how to stop mentioning your name kama wewe ni rika yake.

I have also been a clear disciple of yours, including in 1988 when you exchanged Hon. Kibaki with another person who was proposed by hii Kuria Kanyingi. I was there with you even when marehemu Sharif Nassir (MHSRIP) pronounced 'wapende wasipende' when some noise-making Kanu members led by Kiraitu Murungi and Raila were running around with Matiba (also a life member) asking for a repeal of sekshen 2a of the constitushen. Nassir didn’t know that you had decided to give them multi-party and ‘see if the amount of ugali will increase on the table’. Of course everything was under your rungu-kubwo kontrol. Akuna kitu awa wanafanya. Kanu itatawala, kama ni Kibaki, Uhuru, Raila, Kalonzo, Ruto, Pattni, Muiru hata ile ngine naitwa nani, Kijana hii naitwa Jirongo. Yote ni Kanu, undiluted Kanu.

Of course after Kanu ya Uhuru accepted defeat and gave permission to Kanu ya Kibaki na Karume na Michuki to rule Kenya. Mzee, even when Kanu elections were called the other year, I stood with you kabisa. But remember Mzee, that I supported you when, after being defeated by OUR project Uhuru at the Kanu elections, you declared that you actually didn't even know Kibiwott's house. Hii mutu naitwa Kibiwott naenda huko na kulia oo Moi na Uhuru but he didn't listen to you. Later he did and now you can see for yourself that he is a good man and you have allowed him to rule and guide the Great Rift Valley. I have applauded your decision to repackage the Kalenjiin in one packet, keep them waiting for you as you go to see your cows and await an inspiration, to speak with one voice (Kibiwott’s) and wish to tell you that I supported what you did today when you tisaitet to sapot Gikaki. I totally support your wise counsel that we should have waited for you to show us tairekshen.

Simply because Mzee Kibaki is Mzee kabisa kama wewe and he IS president. He IS the symbol of national cohesion, national security, national pride and Mzee I forgot other platitudes. How come Kibaki never saw you this way while you were President? Anyway, you’re a Christian full of peace, love and unity. Now Mzee I think we should advise Kibaki to change the constitution of Kenya so that Kenya can elect a president every TEN years and NOT after five years. Hii ingine kama kansola na mjumbe naweza kuwa kila baada ya five years. Actually we can create another post for all former presidents to be ‘Co-president for life’ no matter who comes in as president. That way you and I can have a smaller State-House from which we can micro-manage the Kalenjiin who are still transfixed by your wit and power to rule Kenya peacefully ‘in spite of being surrounded by fires in Uganda, Somalia and even in Congo’ (Lakini Mzee Congo iko sentrol Afriga, haya). Please Mzee, dream of these things today and let us see what we can do. You know we have people like Bar Lion and Abraham and ‘Kata Kidole mbili' (sic), who can start talking, talking and talking to the Kalenjiin people about these wise ideas. No president in Kenya should ever be called former president, we only need ‘the late president’ after one goes abroad. Mzee do something now while Kibaki is walking 3 KM and gets tired. Mzee ukituwacha tutakwisha kabisa.

When you sat in that seat this morning at Kabarnet (another confused ‘scholar’ wanted to call it ‘Gaa Bar Naeet’) Gardens and pronounced with Solomic wisdom that the man you rejected as VP in 1988 be given a second chance I agreed with you. I also agree to listen to you for the future. As a political professor and giraffe per excellence, I believe you know who is fit to lead Kenya in 2007 (Kibaki) and 2012 (I bet you find it fit to say ‘my friend Saitoti’). Please help me to understand when the people you paraded at JKIA that one morning after you arrived from South Africa and said none was fit to lead Kenya will be fit to RULE Kenya. Do you remember, Mzee, how sheepishly they all competed to clap loudest while standing to give you a standing ovation for the greatest revelation?

I appreciate that you are endowed with special powers to see even Gideon as the president in 2017, Uhuru Kenyatta’s son/daughter as president in 2022 and Mr Kibaki's grandson/daughter for 2027. Mzee, because we are all approaching our flight for departure to ‘abroad’, please give me a short list of the president of Kenya for 2032, 2037, 2042, 2047, 2052, 2057, 2062, 2067, 2072, 2077, 2082, 2087, 2092, 2097 and 2102 which makes it 100 years of uninterrupted Kanu rule. Actually you may wish to let me keep a longer list till 2102 so that my son may know the basic rules that govern the presidential (s)elections in Kenya.

I know this is a very long letter for you. Actually you know that you don’t like reading long things because you’re good at off-the-cuff speeches. Please reply directly to me to this letter so that I can put it in a safe-box for my son and other very interested wise men and women to know when they become of age that the presidency is pre-ordained for the undiluted Kanu and the people you list down. I trust you're never wrong. If you can, please also tell me when Christ will disrupt the five-year election cycle in Kenya. I hope you don't tell me that Kenya will stop and freeze when you go 'abroad'. No I want to manage things for you thereafter, having been a good student of yours. But if this happens, do also tell me what I should do if the list becomes shorter than the time of your flight.

Allow me to say that as a Kalenjiin, I count myself very lucky to share with you a common heritage and wisdom. It's unfortunate that most of the other Kalenjiin and Kenyan people don't see what you're going to share with me. I sympathise with them that they don’t see that ODM (Mzee you call it OTIEM!) is a tribal party because it is polluted with very many confused tribes. It is a tribe-infested party and borrowing from your classmates at Kapsabet High School of 1939, I know that undiluted chemicals are supposed to be clean and made up of ONLY one substance. Mzee, I am ashamed to tell you that I was there exactly half a century after you left, that is why you are everything to me. So, Kanu is undiluted because it is Kanu original. Lest they forget, Kanu belongs to a single isakiaat eating man but is currently under the care of a left-handed heir-apparent. Or he will remain apparent for ever? Please guide me also on this.

Hii ingine naita OTIEM iko na watu of different identities nasunguka hukooooo, mwisho denimonator nakuwa ndogo nagaribia siro, kwisha kabisa! Hii watu kwisha kabisa. They don’t know the difference between visions and manifestoes. We need no visions, we need tevelopmen record, maneno mingi bure kabisa. Mzee amii koboteen. Never mind, they are in a tribe-infested party called ODM which you and I, being appreciative of the limitations of our knowledge of this language English (which we bought with very limited resources), call it tribal parties. Yes, Kanu (and I forgot to ask you which party Kibaki has decided for, but I trust he will avoid all those tribal parties and use Kanu) is a nationalist party because it is undiluted by some uncircumcised, chicken eating, blood sucking, noisemaking tribes carrying hammers as if the only business they have is to make timber-merchandise. How come these people don’t know that if we can import the so-called radioactive milk, we can also import wood dust and squeeze them into beds and chairs?

Finally Baba number ONE, please tell me the wisdom in one of your most important lessons to us. We have never paid attention to your advise and we’re sorry. But what exactly do you mean by `Bitoriin Cheeserem, O koikoi Cheerop’. Who are these people, Mzee? Please tell me so that I can beware of Cheeserem. Finally Kabiiisa Mzee, the people who want to follow OTIEM have asked me to tell you to leave them to perish alone as you prosper alone with the government of Wazees. They say that when somebody wanted you hang upside down, they roared like a pack of 2.4M lions and the enemies started Anglo-lising instead of following you on a goat-rearing expedition to Sach-Ooi. So, they say they would like to be left alone. Mzee, I think they are crazy but that is their right. Do you remember your dear friend Mulu Mutisya (who has since gone abroad) asking you to give us 'those chapatis called Karl Marx, pea kila mutu mpili mpili' when at the University some students were disussing things they didn't teach you at Kapsabet School? Mzee, kama hii 'acha sisi pekee yetu' is some kaa ngumu mandazi, wacha hawa wakule kumi kumi kila moja bora wasilewe kama ile kumi kumi ingine iko na Jina ya hii Raila. Kongoi Baba.

If you fail to get my address because of the difficulties involved in the new address called PO Box www, I could send segemik to pick the message from you. I understand that hii mambo naitwa indanet gitu gani hii?

Thank you Taniel, na ukae ivyo ivyo apana ovyo ovyo.

Sincerely yours,

Kipkendiaat